Winry Rockbell, Martian Space Pilot!
by Becca Stareyes
Summary: AU. Sheska is the assistant to Ambassador to Mars Maes Hughes. She is pulled into Martian politics by Winry, a friend of the Martian Royal Family, and discovers secrets and plots that will change the face of the Solar System.
1. Prologue

**Author's Note**

This was written for the SF&Fantasy Big Bang event on LJ. As a result, I have 8 chapters of completed fiction. Rather than update it all at once, I'm planning on just uploading one chapter at a time once a week. So, all you folks who don't want to be left hanging by a WIP that gets dropped, fear not. This has an end written -- I just need to post it.

Standard boilerplate -- the fic is rated PG13 for violence and language. I'm also taking off the safety on mortality. (Meaning, I'm not warning for character death/maiming/trauma besides telling you there will be PG13 level violence). If this bothers you, I'll note that the rest of my FMA work is written with the safety on.

* * *

January 6, 1919  
Dear Author:

Thank you for your submission to _Fantastic Vistas and Voyages_. While we at _FV&V_ appreciate your submission, at this time it does not meet our needs. We thank you for your interest in our magazine, and hope you keep _FV&V_ in mind for future speculative fiction submissions.

-- Yours Sincerely,  
Cassidy Blumenthal

* * *

January 10, 1919

Dear Winry,  
Well, I got my first rejection letter today. But I'm not going to give up. Most of the books I've read on publishing short stories and serials say that a lot of first attempts are rejected. I'm going to revise my story, and start another one. I'd say all the electric light I've been using to write after work was going to raise my electricity bill, but I was already up late reading. It will mean I'll fall more behind on my books, though. Such is the life of an author.

How is Rush Valley? Is it cold there? It's been snowing here since Midwinter, or at least that's what it feels like. So, this letter might be late getting to you if the roads get blocked. At least you're in the south, and not up near Drachma.

And how's your apprenticeship going? Things are quiet here in Central City, since the Parliament isn't in session. I do make time to go read the newspaper when I get up in the morning, just so I'm not surprised if anything newsworthy happens that affects my job.

If you need a little reading material, I attached the latest draft of my serial story. Tell me what you think -- be honest, all right? It's a copy of the version I made to send to the magazine. I used carbon paper when I was typing, just in case my first copy got lost in the mail. Don't worry -- I still have my handwritten notes, and I remember perfectly how the draft goes.

Your Friend,  
Sheska  
P. S. I am very bad at naming characters, so be warned.  



	2. Chapter 1: The Golden Towers of Cydonia

The crystal spires of the Royal Palace of Mars glowed golden in the morning light. They looked far too delicate to stand, but Sheska knew that her earthly sense of architecture was playing tricks on her. In the gravity of Mars, far less support was needed for such beautiful towers, and the rare rains and snows made open plazas less of an inconvenience.

It did nothing for the cold, though. Sheska pulled her coat tighter around herself and clutched the package to her chest. It was well past spring equinox, but the mornings still had a chill to them, and there had been mist rising off the canal when she had crossed the bridge on her way over from the Earthly Embassy.

She paused at the gate. It was a relic of Mars's ancient history, when the city-states had warred over water and arable land, before unification under the Technocrat's ancestors. Sheska showed her identification badge, which she had put in her pocket before coming over.

"What's your business this sol?" The spear and shield held by a bored-looking guard were as ceremonial as the old gate, though Sheska had no doubt the guard had more modern body-armor under his robe, and a radio headset built into his helmet.

"Sheska Squires with a message for the Technocrat or his family, from Ambassador Hughes. The Ambassador asked me to deliver it to the Technocrat's hands, or to one of the Royal Family, personally."

The guard nodded. "The Technocrat is out of the city on business," he explained, using the spear to lean on. "The princes have been in and out all week, but the Lady Trisha is in her solar."

Sheska bowed -- just enough to be poilte. "Thank you."

"I'll summon an escort for you," the guard said, twisting his head slightly to speak into what had to be a hidden microphone in his helmet.

Sheska turned away, noticing motion out of the corner of her eye. A workman was directing a couple of robots in refurbishing one of the bas reliefs on the outer walls. It was a mural of the Solar System, each planet carved from the rust-red stone native to the area, and then adorned with paints from tanks on the robots. Earth was a brilliant blue against the stone, with Luna set next to her in tarnished silver. Mars had been left unpainted, but polished to the same finish as the other planets, and dark pinpricks set to either side for Phobos and Deimos.

She watched as the robots touched up the clouds of Earth, and one start on the bands of Jupiter, when she heard the sound of a woman's throat clearing. "Oh, I'm sorry," she said, almost without thinking about it, and turned to face the newcomer.

The woman facing her was clearly of the noble class. She wore the same simply-cut robe that many Martians favored, but it was ornately adorned with beadwork around the collar and cuffs. Her hair was pulled back, prominently showing the slender antennae that were the most obvious difference between Martians and Earthlings, and secured with combs as black as her hair. There were iridescent feathers set in her hair, of some bird that Sheska didn't recognize. The woman was frowning at Sheska, her brow furrowed. "The Royal Palace is not for gawking by ignorant alien tourists," she said.

"Oh, I'm with the Embassy," Sheska replied. "Just waiting for my escort so I can deliver a courier package inside." She held it up, clearly showing Ambassador Hughes's personal seal, alongside the globe-and-olive-branch seal of the United Nations of Earth.

The noblewoman sniffed, as if having even a working Earthling on the Palace premises were fouling the air. Sheska found herself frowning in return. She knew that there were some Martians who felt that any involvement with Earth would pollute their culture. One of her jobs was scanning the news broadcasts for the Ambassador's reports back to Earth. But, so far, all of the Martians she met, whether officially or just out on shopping trips in the city, had been nothing but kind to her.

Well, maybe the woman just didn't like her lollygagging around when she should be working. Sheska glanced over to see another guard approaching the one standing watch. "Well, that's probably my escort, ma'am. If I may take my leave."

The woman nodded, going back to watching the mural painters. Sheska turned to follow the guard, and tried not to trip over anyone else. This early in the morning, and with the Technocrat elsewhere, the palace was quiet. Sheska saw more guards, a few bureaucrats coming over from the Government House across the mall, and the occasional cleaning robot scouring the floor. One of the robots took to following the guard and her as they walked, buffing the floor to remove even the possible hint of footprints. Sheska struggled to check her boots without stopping. They looked mostly clean. There were traces of dust that had been pushed into the seams and that no amounts of polishing and cleaning would get out. But that was just what being on Mars was like.

They had arrived in a south-facing room, where the sweet smell of flowers suffused the hallway even before the guard keyed open the door. Sheska nodded. "This will only take a moment," she said. The guard nodded back and Sheska entered the Lady Trisha's solar.

The view of the red deserts below the mesa that the city was built on, framed in windows of clear glass, made the earthly plants that covered the room look a brilliant emerald green. Or rather, Sheska amended, many shades of green, from peridot to turquoise. Flowers sat among the leaves like little tropical birds hiding from the cold. The center of the room had a carved fountain, which made the dry air feel softer against Sheska's face. It also felt truly warm here, and she wanted to shed her coat, even for a moment.

The Lady Trisha went almost unnoticed, sitting on a stone bench with her back to the fountain, facing her plants. She was dressed in the Martian fashion, in a simple white robe belted across the waist, and her brown hair in a plain twist, but she still was clearly an Earthling. She was bent over her handheld computer display as Sheska entered, but glanced up almost immediately.

"Good morning, your Majesty," Sheska said.

"Good morning," Lady Trisha said flatly. Sheska frowned. She couldn't say she knew the Lady Trisha well, but the two or three other times she had met her, there had been a warm hello. On the other hand, those were at some reception or other, when she had greeted dozens of guests. Perhaps she was just having a bad sol -- or was homesick. The solar was a lovely replica of the best of Earth, but you could still feel the light gravity and thin air in the room. "Miss Squires from the Embassy, yes?"

"That's right." Sheska smiled. "I have a message from Ambassador Hughes. Top secret -- for the Technocrat or Crown Prince's eyes only. Can you see that one of them get this as soon as they get back?" She held out the packet. Really, she suspected that Lady Trisha herself and Prince Alphonse would know as soon as the Technocrat or Prince Edward read it, but those had been her instructions. Only four people could receive the information, and only two of those were authorized to open it.

Lady Trisha nodded as she took the package, setting it next to her. "Of course."

"Thank you, your Majesty." Sheska paused, before leaving. "Are you all right?" she asked, biting her tongue afterward.

"Pardon?"

"Well, you sounded a bit... oh, it's nothing." Sheska snapped to attention, trying to make up for her sudden informality. Dealing with royalty was _hard_ and she really didn't want to screw up this job, after she had been so happy to get a posting off-world. "I thought you might be homesick, and, well, you're always welcome in the Embassy gardens as well. If you wanted a change of pace, I mean. They're outside, so it's mostly alpine and tundra plants, but..."

Lady Trisha paused, as if sorting out the fast blur of Sheska's words. "Thank you. Perhaps I will visit Ambassador Hughes later."

Sheska sighed, almost collapsing in relief before she remembered where she was. "I'll look forward to it." She bowed, because she figured you couldn't go wrong with a bow, then headed out as quickly as her inner sense of decorum, already badly bruised, would let her.

* * *

Sheska decided when she left the palace grounds that it would be a good idea to stop at her favorite bakery on the way back. She could bring some pastries in for the ambassador and his family, which would be a kindness, and have one for herself, which would be relaxing after making a fool of herself in front of the Lady Trisha. This early in the morning they would be fresh from the oven, crusty on the outside and steaming in the cold air when they were broken open. She could practically taste them as she walked, dry and flaky, and covered in something very much like honey.

To get there from the Central Mall, she had to veer off the main streets and into the maze of twisty little alleys, all alike, that made up some of the less trafficked parts of Cyndonia. Here you could feel the weight of years on the city, with houses and shops that had been occupied for millennia, patchworked in repairs. Her boots echoed on the cobbles as she walked, and she found herself paying very little attention, letting her feet carry themselves roughly south towards the bakery. In her head, she reviewed her other jobs for the sol as she walked.

Perhaps she should have paid attention to where she was going. She nearly ran into a Martian woman, not much younger than Sheska herself. "Oh, I'm sorry," Sheska said. The woman stood up, not really seeing Sheska other than to mumble an apology, and took off at a run.

Out of reflex at the running figure, Sheska checked her belt pouch to make sure the stranger hadn't been a pick-pocket. But she could still feel the weight of her identification, returned to her pouch after leaving the Palace, and her credit chip. "Huh," she said, and continued walking. It must just have been someone in a hurry to work and not a thief at all. Not that she wanted to see a pick-pocket, really. But, it would have been a bit of excitement to another boring sol on Mars, even if she'd probably end up losing her credit chip anyway as the thief got away.

She finally made it to the bakery, and had the assistant at the counter fill a bag with pastries for her, still hot from the oven. Sheska opened her belt pouch and fished out her credit chip for the clerk to scan and deduct from her account. "Is this going to be on the embassy's tab?" the clerk asked her.

"No, ma'am," Sheska replied. Even if some of them would go to the Hughes family, this was for her first. She wanted to take out a pastry and start eating right away, but it wouldn't be good to have sticky hands before she put her credit chip back in her pouch.

The clerk returned her credit chip and Sheska slipped it into her pocket instead of her belt pouch so she wouldn't have to free up her other hand, holding the shopping bag, to unzip it. Her hand brushed a folded piece of paper, one that shouldn't be there -- she meticulously cleaned out her jacket pockets every night, and hadn't put anything new until now.

Outside of the shop, she shoved the bag under her arm and took out the piece of paper. It was a cheap scrap of something, torn off from a larger sheet, and was addressed to Ambassador Hughes in Martian script. Inside was more of the same.

Sheska turned the note this way and that, but couldn't see a signature. The handwriting was neat, without noteworthy features, and the Martian was perfect -- either a native speaker, or someone who knew it at least as well as she did. It was possible that this was a prank, of course, or something more sinister. But she decided to take it to the Ambassador anyway, as something unusual. Even if it wasn't as it seemed, it was something that he should know about. 


	3. Chapter 2: Winry Rockbell

Ambassador Hughes had his office in the Embassy, on the first floor. Trumpet flowers, tended by hired gardeners who specialized in offworld exotica and babied through each overly-long winter, curled up along the window, bracketing the view of the Embassy gardens in the start of green leaves. Inside the office were cases of books, most brought with the ambassador from Earth. Mounted over the fireplace in the north wall was a target with a pair of throwing knives hanging by it. On the shelves, and hanging above the knives, were scattered pictures of the ambassador. Many of them were of him with various other Earth politicians, or photos he had taken himself of Martian landforms and people, but the ones of his family clearly edged out any other category.

Sheska put the folded note onto Hughes's desk. He opened it, and Sheska read the content that she had just glanced at on her walk over:

_Dear Ambassador_, it said. _I'm sorry I couldn't go through more official channels. But, given the current circumstances, that would be too slow. I have information that you need to know -- information about a threat that will harm both Earth and Mars. If you are willing to meet with me, I'll be at Berth Six at the Cydonia Spaceport until tonight._

The ambassador leaned over the note. "You say a pick-pocket gave you this," he said.

"Something like that, sir," Sheska answered. "It wasn't in my pocket this morning before I left here, and I noticed it after I ran into that woman in the alley." She hadn't felt the note fall into her pocket, but a pick-pocket would surely be as good at taking something out as putting something in.

"Huh," Hughes blew on his coffee, another thing imported from Earth, despite several crater-greenhouses in Chryse attempting to grow Earth luxury crops.

"The Martian's pretty good, sir," Sheska said. "I'd say that's a native speaker."

"Which doesn't rule out many people on Mars," Hughes replied. "Have you seen the handwriting before?"

Sheska shook her head. She had a near-perfect memory for text, and had been training it to do other things. "It _is_ handwritten, though, not a print out or copy."

"Right," Hughes said. "Whatever it is, it looks like an incident of opportunity. Did anyone know you were out walking?"

"No," Sheska said. "Someone at the Palace might have seen me, but they wouldn't have known I was going into the older town instead of straight back."

"And you weren't followed?"

"No sir." Sheska paused. "Not that I know, at least."

Hughes rubbed his chin. "This is troublesome, don't you think? Normally, I'd say this was just a crank message. But someone took some effort for this. Sheska, would you mind checking this out?"

"Sir?"

"Well, I'd like to go, but I'm expecting a call myself," Hughes said. "It's from Luna, so it'll probably take all sol just to have a conversation, even if the conjunction with the Sun doesn't completely scramble the radio transmission. Plus, someone needs to be here to let in the workmen -- we're finally fixing that hole in the fence that my Elysia found."

Sheska nodded. She paused, for a moment, wondering if she should ask about the call from Luna. But the ambassador had always been good about being honest about what he could and couldn't take about, and was seemingly impossible to offend. "Sir? What's really going on?"

The ambassador frowned, looking away. Outside, past the green leaves, Sheska saw Elysia running in the garden, several Martian children with her, playing some complicated variant of Tag. Hughes took a while to turn back to Sheska. "More of the usual, I'm afraid," he said. "Isolationists on Mars, isolationists _and_ imperialists on Earth. With President Bradley's election, we're not sure what will be going on back home."

"Do you think that you'll keep your post?" Sheska asked. Hughes had been appointed by President Santiago, Bradley's predecessor, some four years ago. He had come here with Gracia, newly married. Elysia had been born on Mars, and named for the town where Gracia had unexpectedly gone into labor. It was hard to imagine a Mars without Maes Hughes chatting up the Technocrat.

"I don't know, Sheska. It depends -- not many folks learn as much Martian as you and I know." Hughes smiled. "Who knows -- with the right contacts, _you_ could get my job, and I might end up calling _you_ sir. Or ma'am."

Sheska took a step back. "I don't think I'm ready to do your job, sir."

Hughes nodded. "Thanks for the loyalty," he said. "I hope it doesn't bite you later." He took a sip from his coffee. "Be sure to take someone with you if you go to the spaceport to investigate. It's Denny's sol off, so you might want to ask Maria."

* * *

Before heading to the Cydonia Spaceport, Sheska made a phone call to their office, in an attempt to get information on the ship in Berth Six. The receptionist was cagey, only telling her that it was a private yacht and how to leave a message for the owner-captain. Sheska tried to think of a story that would get her more information, but nothing that she thought the receptionist would believe. Sneaking into the office to pull the records herself was right out. In the end, she just asked Maria Ross, one of the Embassy's two guards, to accompany her.

Theoretically, the Martian Embassy should rate more than Ross and Denny Brosh, but Earth had cut back their funding again. It wasn't like Maria and Denny did much besides sit at the front desk during working hours, and occasionally accompany Ambassador Hughes to functions. The Martian government was friendly enough that even Maria and Denny felt safe leaving the ambassador in the hands of the Technocrat's guards. Sheska had heard that the Venusian Embassy had a whole squad of soldiers, with talk of more, but Venus wasn't nearly as stable as Mars was.

Sheska had filled in Maria as the two of them walked to the mag-train station. The tracks ran along the canal from the polar cap that turned the Cyndonia area from a cold desert to merely dry. As they boarded the train, Maria had to show the pass that let her walk armed in the peaceful Martian cities.

Once they sat down and the train started its whisper-quiet and wind-fast trip, Sheska glanced out the window. The croplands were a blue-black blur mixed with the reds and golds of the dunes and rocky outcrops, and the deep white-capped red-brown of the canal water. "Do you think there's going to be trouble?" Sheska asked.

"Hard to say," Maria said neutrally. "The spaceport town is a bit rough."

"Well, we'll stay in the public ways," Sheska replied. "I don't think I'll need to go darting into alleys here." Darting into alleys in the rough spaceport town would be exciting, for sure, but if they ran into trouble, Maria and her pistol wouldn't be that much good against a group. Sheska herself didn't have any training with fighting, besides a basic self-defense course. She trusted herself to not shoot her own foot, but she didn't trust herself to not hit a wall, or Maria for that matter, if she was given a gun.

Maria nodded, relaxing a bit. Sheska suspected this was due to the Purse Incident when she first arrived, which she was finally starting to live down.

The spaceport town had a name other than 'Cydonia Spaceport', but Sheska never heard it used. It was little more than the train station, the spaceport proper, warehouses that held goods between train and ship, and the bars, low-price hotels and houses of ill repute that catered to the rough crowds of spacers on liberty. Sheska had been told that most spacers never set foot outside of the town that mostly existed for their comforts, and most Martians and tourists did what she and Maria were doing now -- walked straight down the main drag from the train station to the spaceport, taking advantage of the fact that the locals tried to keep that one thoroughfare marginally respectable. Sheska could still see far more police officers than she ever noticed elsewhere on Mars, and some were even armed with something other than stunsticks. They glanced uneasily at Maria's pistol, despite the Earth Armed Forces uniform she wore.

Their identification cards got them into the spaceport, and Sheska let Maria lead. A shuttle from Deimos Station had just arrived, as well as a suborbital from Hellas, and there were crowds of visitors and porters hauling trunks until they turned several corners away from the passenger parts of the spaceport and into the more utilitarian parts used to offload cargo, which also held the cheapest docks for private ships.

Maria wasn't speaking, but her eyes darted around as they walked, taking in every stack of cargo crates and worker with a clipboard. Not that there were many people here -- all Martians, most in either spaceport uniforms or sporting ship's patches on their coveralls. Sheska in her civilian Amestrian-Earthling fashions and Maria in her military uniform, and both with bare, antennae-less heads, stood out. Even Sheska could have tailed a pair like they made. A professional could do it in their sleep.

"Here's Berth Six," Sheska said, as they stopped in front of one of the doors. The Martian glyph for '6' was clearly marked, and a signplate by the door identified the ship as the _Rockbell's Wrench_. The owner wasn't listed separately, which was peculiar. Sheska was no expert on names, but Rockbell was the surname of the Technocrat's Minister of Health. She wasn't sure if this ship belonged to a relative or one of the Minister's staff, or was just a person who happened to have the same name.

On the other side of the door frame was an intercom with a button. "I'll see if our contact's in," Sheska said.

Maria nodded, but took a step towards the opposite wall. Sheska paused, realizing that Maria had just moved so that she had as clear a view as she could while being mostly covered from the passageway behind the door. She also saw Maria position her hands so that she could draw her pistol quickly.

Sheska tried to ignore this, taking a couple of deep breaths before pressing the button. "Hello? This is Sheska Squires, Ambassador Hughes's assistant. I'm here about the note."

The intercom hummed to life. "The ambassador didn't come himself?" The voice was female, and young, and could have been the same person as the pick-pocket.

Sheska shook her head. "No, he couldn't make it so he sent me and a guard. What was it you needed to talk about?"

"Not out here!" the voice said. "I'm going to let you in, all right? Don't make any sudden movements -- just come in. Quickly."

Sheska exchanged a look with Maria. "One moment." She silenced the intercom. "What do you think? She sounds really frightened."

"It sounds peculiar to me," Maria replied. "Don't be hasty."

"I'm not going to be hasty. But we came all the way out here, knowing it was a bit suspicious. I don't think this is any more so than before."

"I don't like this. We should find a phone and call for the ambassador."

Sheska shook her head. "We can't leave now. The person will probably get paranoid and refuse to let us in when we get back."

"That's not a statement for her trustworthiness and safety."

Sheska shook her head again. "I'm going to go in. Cover me?"

Maria sighed. "Very well." Clearly she thought Sheka was doing something stupid again, but wasn't going to argue with her.

Sheska pressed the intercom button. "All right -- you can let us in."

The door slid back. The gangway out to the ship was nondescript, having only the heavy fittings to mate with a spaceship's airlock at the other end. Unlike the part of the spaceport where Sheska had arrived, the floor was metal mesh, and she could see pipes and cables beneath the floor as she and Maria walked across, shoes clicking.

The airlock at the other end was decorated with the calligraphic brushstrokes of Martian script, giving the ship's name. Sheska could hear the mechanism of the heavy airlock door as it slid aside, and a figure came out.

It wasn't the woman she had seen earlier, who had slipped her the message, though both had been dressed in utilitarian coveralls, and both were about the age of Sheska herself. That woman had been dark, from what little Sheska saw, and this one was fair, with blonde hair peeking out from the bandanna keeping it out of her face. The Martian woman wasn't obviously armed, outside of a heavy wrench in her hand. Sheska still noticed out of the corner of her eye that Maria took a step back, giving her a clear firing range.

The Martian woman looked them both over. "Well, you look like you're from Earth, at least. Tell your guard to leave her firearm outside -- I don't want it in my ship. It might put a hole through the hull or something."

Sheska looked back towards Maria. "I think we might be at an impasse then."

The Martian woman sighed. "Well, I guess she can keep it. But only because this is that important. And she better not draw it. Follow me."

She backed up, keeping her head turned towards Sheska and Maria, back into her ship. Sheska followed.

Inside the ship, it was cramped. She could see the pilot and copilot's couches and the flight instruments to her left as she entered, and there was a small empty space in front of her, with several pairs of fold-down seats that were stowed against the bulkhead. To her right was another hatch, perhaps one that would lead to cargo or living space. Sheska had seen ships the size of this one, owned by small-time traders, the sort that carried low-mass things like gemstones and art between worlds.

Still, it was neat, with everything secure, and the steel and brass accents practically gleaming. The Martian woman undid one of the seats from its fasteners, folding it down, and then sat down. She gestured for them to do the same, which Sheska did. She noted Maria remaining by the airlock, still standing.

"So what did you want to speak to the ambassador about, Miss...?"

"Rockbell," the woman replied.

The same name as the ship. Presumably it meant it was hers, or her family's. "I'm Sheska Squires," she replied, despite already having given her name not five minutes before. Miss Rockbell nodded.

"I'm delivering a message on behalf of His Royal Highness Prince Edward Elric," Miss Rockbell continued. She pulled out a ring from her pocket, the sign of the Flamel visible in the steel, not raised or indented, but in the pattern of crystals in the metal. Sheska held out her hand, and Miss Rockbell gingerly set it down.

It certainly looked legitimate as she held it to the light, turning it this way and that to check for flaws. Sheska knew of little besides Martian Alchemy that could pattern the metal in such exact work. Earthling smiths had, in a long-forgotten technique, created swirls within their steel blades; decorative without sacrificing function. Some modern craftsmen could duplicate the patterns on the surface, but a lab would show the difference -- the edge on an Alchemical design was far more precise than even the most carefully-worked Earthling piece.

Sheska didn't have a lab, unfortunately. She held up the ring for Maria to see, then handed it back to Miss Rockbell. "Why the secrecy? If you had a message from His Highness, then you could just come to the Embassy. Or he could have come himself. The ambassador would have been delighted to speak to him."

"We needed a more secure means of communication. I had to ask a friend to deliver the message to you," Miss Rockbell explained. "Ed doesn't trust the palace."

Sheska paused. "What?" She nearly stood up. This was beginning to sound more and more like paranoid conspiracy mongering. "But it's his father's palace. Surely the Technocrat-"

Miss Rockbell shook her head sharply. "Not Uncle Hohenheim." Sheska raised an eyebrow at the familial way she was addressing the ruler of the planet. "We don't know how to reach him, though. And Auntie Trisha is acting weird."

"Weird?" Sheska asked. "What do you mean weird?"

Miss Rockbell shook her head. "I'm repeating what Ed and Al told me, but I noticed it too."

"Hang on," Maria said. "What are you to the Technocrat and his family?"

Miss Rockbell paused. "Right. I'm Pinako Rockbell's granddaughter. She's an old friend of the Technocrat as well as his Minister of Health. I grew up with the princes in the palace, and the Technocrat and Lady Trisha were like a second set of parents to me. Busy parents, but parents."

Sheska nodded. She remembered one of the newspaper articles Ambassador Hughes had given to her when she arrived. It had been about the Minister of Health's son and daughter-in-law, who had been assassinated on a humanitarian mission to Venus. There had been a picture of the family in the article -- Minister Rockbell, her son and daughter-in-law and her young granddaughter. It was about a decade old, but there was a resemblance between the child in the photo and the young woman now. "Winry, then?"

Sheska saw Miss Rockbell -- Winry -- turn to face her. "Yes. How did you-?"

"Photographic memory," Sheska replied. "If it's printed and I've seen it, I remember it. What did you notice?"

Winry shook her head. "Nothing we could put our fingers on. She was just distant. She's not normally like that at all. Granny's got business in Argyle, and Uncle Hohenheim is off somewhere, so we couldn't check with either of them. Then I get a message from Ed telling me to get out of sight, don't tell Auntie Trisha or anyone where I was headed, and find Ambassador Hughes and bring him to a meeting spot, and I haven't been able to reach him or Al since."

"She seemed normal this morning," Sheska said. "But you would know better than me, I suppose."

"This morning?" Winry frowned.

"She was the only one of the Royal Family in the Palace this sol, so I left a courier packet from the ambassador with her."

Winry practically squeaked. "What did it say?"

Sheska shook her head. "I don't know -- it was sealed. You'll have to ask the ambassador." She nodded at Maria. "I think it's safe, Maria. I recognize her as Pinako Rockbell's granddaughter."

"You do?" Maria asked.

"Yep. I never forget things I've read, remember?" She turned back to Winry. "I can bring the ambassador to you if you want, Miss Rockbell. He said he'd be in the embassy all sol. If we take the train back, we should be able to catch the first train tomorrow."

Winry shook her head. "No time." She grinned. "How about a shortcut?" She stood up, folding her seat away, then turned towards the fore of the ship. "If I remember correctly, there's a nice, flat plain outside the city."

Sheska nearly fell out of her chair. "You're right, but everyone will notice if you land a rocket there! It's not a quiet entrance at all."

Maria cleared her throat. "I hate to be paranoid, but if there were spotters in the spaceport or at the train station, we were already noticed as soon as we arrived and met with Miss Rockbell."

"So a short suborbital hop will catch them by surprise, if they think we'll take the train back," Winry finished.

It was very dramatic, but probably not in the way that would let her keep her job. "At least let me call the ambassador first!" Sheska said. "I don't think he wants to be surprised like this at all, and we'll still have to head through the city to get to him."

"Don't call him from the ship," Winry replied, "unless you have a diplomatic code or something."

Sheska nodded. "I memorized the codebook."

Winry sighed. "Fine." She gestured to the cockpit. "Sit in the co-pilot's chair. The umbilical should give us phone service."

Winry walked Sheska through the process of dialing off-ship, but instead of the sound of the Embassy's telephone ringing, Sheska heard a loud alert. "This is Cyndonia Spaceport to Civilian Ship _Rockbell's Wrench_. Please prepare to be boarded for search for fugitives. You are a suspect in the kidnapping of Their Royal Highnesses, Crown Prince Edward and Prince Alphonse Elric"

"Fugitives?" Sheska said. "Kidnapping?" But the message was pre-recorded, and the voice merely repeated it until she hung up the phone.

"Miss Guard, close the airlock and strap in," Winry said. "We're taking off now. I think calling the ambassador will have to wait."


	4. Chapter 3: Invasion!

Cydonia Control had been very unhappy with them. Sheska spent the short suborbital trip gripping the armrests and trying not to touch any of the instruments as Winry Rockbell, hands dancing over her controls, launched them straight into the air, high enough so that Sheska could see the Red Planet curving below her, and the dark sky of space, and then back down, so that the ground was approaching far faster than it really should ever be.

But they landed safely, and Sheska could release her death grip on the armrest once the engines turned off. Looking back as she undid her seat belt, Maria had found the seat Sheska had left unoccupied and was seated calmly, her hands folded in her lap, and not a hair out of place. Winry didn't seem to be bothered by the harrowing trip either, and Sheska sighed.

"Can you lead me to the Embassy?" Winry asked. Sheska nodded.

"I'll lead," Maria told the two of them. "You both need to be on Embassy grounds as soon as possible, so the ambassador can sort this out."

"Right," Sheska said. "Should we get disguises? In case someone sees us?"

"I don't keep disguises in my ship," Winry replied, "unless you want to pass a bed sheet off as a robe."

"Our best defense will be continuing to move quickly," Maria added. "If we're lucky, the landing caught the police off guard."

Sheska nodded. "It was just a thought." A silly thought, now that she thought about it. She mostly was concerned about Maria and her, since there weren't that many Earthlings, even in the capital. Winry wasn't as immediately noticeable, though she was the one who was actually wanted.

It turns out Maria and Winry were right. They had arrived near the end of the work day, when the streets were filled with people heading home. Once they hit the outskirts of the city, they could blend into the crowd at the first airbus station they came to, and ride anonymously to the hub in the city center. After they disembarked, Maria used a public telephone to ring the Embassy. Winry and Sheska watched as she waited impatiently, before hanging up. "No one is answering."

Sheska frowned. "Maybe we caught the ambassador at dinner?"

"Then we should have gotten Denny or someone."

Winry shook her head. "This is bad. We're not far now, so we should just check it out."

Maria nodded. "With luck, it's just another technical problem with the lines." But she didn't sound convinced.

Embassy Row was merely a few blocks down from the phone they had used, along wide boulevards planted with native flowers and lavishly adorned with fountains. Here they could no longer blend into the crowd, since the streets were finally clearing of the government staff that worked in the district during the day, and the tourists had retreated to restaurants and cafés for dinner.

On the other hand, it made the set of Peace Officer aircars, strobe lights flashing, a clear sight from blocks away. Maria put a hand to her holster. "More trouble," she said.

"Maybe there was just some disturbance at the Embassy?" Sheska replied.

"Maybe," Maria said, in a tone that meant she thought it was doubtful. "In that case, it should have been Denny who is handling it, unless it was serious enough to call the local police."

"Is there a back way in?" Winry asked, regarding the aircars with some degree of suspicion. After finding out there was a warrant out for her arrest, Sheska couldn't blame her.

Sheska shook her head. "No. No, wait, there was a hole in the wall that Elysia Hughes discovered. The ambassador was trying to get it repaired, but it might still be open. But that way will probably be monitored by the Embassy."

"I think the ambassador will forgive you if you take the back way in, Sheska," Maria replied. "So will Denny, even if he's the one called to check it out."

Winry nodded. "It would be better to be on Earth ground. Safer, maybe."

Maria nodded. "Sheska, get our guest into the Embassy. I'll go talk to the officers and find out what's wrong. If it's nothing, I'll meet you inside to speak to the ambassador."

"And if it isn't?" Sheska asked.

"I'll think of something."

"Um... Maria? Good luck."

Maria gave her a brief smile. "Go on -- there should be a cross-street that will take you behind the Embassy. Best to be out of sight before I get into range of the Peace Officers. Seeing you two ducking away will make them suspicious." She then turned away, towards the flashing lights and the besieged Embassy.

Winry took Sheska's arm and tugged her towards the nearest cross street. "Come on."

They left Maria to the uncertainty of the front entrance and rounded the corner. Embassy Row had a park to its back. Sheska had many memories of the ambassador spotting the distant figure of his wife and daughter through his window and stopping a meeting to wave, despite the long odds of them actually seeing him. It was well past the gardens behind the Embassy building, and Sheska could see the netting put up by landscapers to keep the Earth plants' seeds contained on Earth soil. Of the rest of the row, only the Venusian Embassy had the same precautions -- the other seemed to be content with local flora for their grounds.

The hole in the wall had been blocked off with marking tape, and construction workers had already been at work to clear away the broken boards from the wall, leaving an opening a slender person could slip through. The fence was mostly decorative, and something to anchor the security cameras to. No one -- or at least no one important enough to challenge the matter -- had ever thought it would be needed as something more than just a simple boundary. Until now.

"I'm sorry about this," Winry said as Sheska cleared away the tape.

"What?"

"About dragging you in to this mess. I thought they wouldn't dare go after the Earthling government, so once I delivered the message, you all would be safe."

Sheska smiled at her as she finished clearing the tape. "I wouldn't have thought so either. Maria might have, but that's her job. Here, watch the fence. There might be splinters." She slipped into the back garden, working the threads of her jacket and her hair free of the rough edges of boards, then took a step farther in so Winry could enter.

Winry managed to not entangle her own hair, though she had to duck to fit comfortably. Sheska led her across the gardens to the back entrance, unlocking the door.

Despite the setting sun, no one had switched on the lights. The hallways and office space on the first floor looked deserted. More than that, they sounded deserted -- Sheska couldn't hear the sounds of the ambassador at his desk, or Denny's chair squeaking as he watched the surveillance cameras. Then again, no one normally would be at work at this hour -- Missus Hughes would have dragged her husband away for dinner, and only two guards meant that the security was automated at times.

Sheska started walking, feeling like a burglar. Or a secret agent. It did seem like a secret agent thing to do, sneak into one's own workplace. She grinned at that thought, humming the theme song to 'Hawk Sterling, Secret Agent'.

Winry held a finger up to her lips. "Shh. There could be trouble."

"Oh, right." Sheska ducked down a bit, embarrassed. "If the trouble's made it inside, it'll be at the front lobby. Most of the doors to this space and the living quarters lock. That's just down the hall."

The two strode softly down the carpeted hall. Sheska took her keys out from her pocket, trying to keep the jangling from alerting anyone to her presence. When they reached the door that would lead into the lobby, Sheska pushed on it gently. "Still locked. I'll have to try my keys."

"Do you hear voices?" Winry asked, holding her ear nearly at the door. "Someone's on the other side."

"The door is solid wood," Sheska replied. "We won't know who's there until we open it and check it out."

Winry looked at her, not saying a word, and they might have waited there longer, but for a sickeningly loud thump of something hitting the door and a woman's yelp, cut short. Sheska went for the key to the lobby, sorting through the ring by touch. "That was Maria!"

"What are you doing? Whatever is on the other side just shoved something... someone... into the door hard!" Winry replied. "Isn't there a back way in?"

"This _is_ the back way in!" Sheska said. "Hopefully Maria was a distraction." She heard the lock click and felt the door give. Despite her desire to throw open the door, she eased it open instead, hoping that it could give her some cover.

Someone moved in front of the door. Someone in Earth uniform -- Maria? It was her, though she had a nasty bruise on her face and her nose looked broken. She also was limping and had her gun out. Sheska paused before entering, Winry behind her, trying to see what had thrown Maria back.

"You might want to tell your guard to stand down, Ambassador," an unfamiliar voice said. Sheska couldn't place it as male or female, exactly, but the tone spoke of large amounts of arrogance. "I wouldn't want to hurt her worse." The tone of his -- her? -- voice make that statement sound like a lie.

"You're certainly being daring," Sheska heard the ambassador say. "Attacking my guard and trying to arrest me on Earth soil." She heard the sound of steel being drawn and she was reminded of the throwing knives that Ambassador Hughes kept in his office. Maybe they, and the target, weren't as decorative as she always assumed they were. "Aren't you worried this will start a war?"

"Oh, like I care," the other voice said. "Just wanted to see how many people I could beat up without having to make excuses to the boss. That's one," and Sheska heard another thump. She heard the sound of quick footsteps, and she shoved the door out of the way, charging in. She didn't have a weapon, besides the keys in her hand and her memories of self-defense classes taken long enough ago that she wondered if she still had the moves trained into her muscles.

She paused just long enough to see a stranger -- a Martian young man in a palace guard's uniform but with a wild mop of hair, dyed a green that was almost black, with feathers tucked into it as an accent -- charging at the ambassador. Maria was down, slumped against a wall, not moving. The guard slowed for a moment -- just a moment -- when Sheska threw the door open, and it was enough for Ambassador Hughes to take the knife in his hand and throw it into the shoulder of the guard.

If the guard noticed the handle sticking out of his shoulder, he paid it no mind in his charge. His elbow planted squarely in Ambassador Hughes's gut, and the force of his momentum drove the ambassador against the nearest wall. Sheska thought she heard something snap, and she prayed it was something on the wall and not in the ambassador.

Winry ran into the room behind her. "That wasn't necessary!" she yelled. She had taken out a photon pistol that Sheska hadn't even known she had been carrying, and had it pointed at the guard.

The guard stepped away from the ambassador, who sank to the floor. Sheska thought she saw a hint of red soaking through his shirt. "Oh, good," the guard said, with a crazed grin on his face, and the knife still sticking into his shoulder, "I thought that seemed a bit too easy. You're Winry Rockbell, right?"

"That's right! Don't move, or I'll shoot!" Sheska could see Winry's hands shaking as she pointed the gun at the guard.

"Is that so? Then why are your hands shaking, little girl?" The guard sauntered closer to her. "You might have bought that photon pistol, but you've never fired it at anything but a target, have you? It's different when it's someone who can talk back, isn't it?" He stopped, maybe five feet in front of her. "Go ahead. Shoot me. Let's see what you're really made of."

Sheska could feel her heart beating in her ears as she watched. The scene was frozen in front of her, like a set of wax sculptures. She looked to Maria, who had pulled herself into a half-seated position and was crawling towards the door, and then looked to the ambassador. She caught Maria's eye, as she glanced at the ambassador, who wasn't getting up from where the guard had left him. She crept towards Hughes.

"Come on. Shoot or lower the damn gun, little girl." The guard didn't seem to see her as she reached Hughes.

"Ambassador?" she asked, trying to check the bleeding.

"Sheska?" Hughes looked up, his glasses jarred loose from the fight. "Go find Gracia. Get her and Elysia out of here. I sent Denny to get her."

"But…" She wanted to say a thousand things. What about you? What about Winry and Maria? What do I do once Denny and I get Missus Hughes and Elysia out?

Hughes shook his head. "That's an order. You're a bright woman, Sheska. You can think of a plan." He pulled himself into a sitting position, and drew his other knife. "When I throw this, run."

"Still not shooting? I haven't got all sol, you know." The guard stood, hands on his hips, looking at Winry. "Well, how boring." His hand darted out, grabbing the pistol from hers. Sheska heard a snap as his grip left imprints on the barrel. He tossed it into a corner, and looked at it reflectively. "Suppose I shouldn't have done that. I guess I can always say you four were killed resisting arrest. So sad, but what can you do?"

"Now!" Hughes threw his second knife, this time hitting one of the guard's legs. Sheska saw the signal, and ran for the stairs that would take her to the ambassador's apartment, still keeping her eyes on the scene in the entryway.

The guard turned, this time starting to show a definite limp. He removed both knives without even a flicker of expression. There was no blood on the blades. He studied them thoughtfully, running a finger along one edge, as if to test the sharpness. "Very nice knives. Are these yours, Ambassador? Would you like them back? Or perhaps your lovely assistant would like one?"

Sheska swallowed hard, dashing up the stairs and through the hallway -- Denny hadn't locked the door behind him, thank goodness. As she rounded the corner, she nearly tripped before she took her eyes off of behind her. "Watch it," someone said.

A Martian woman stood there, her dark hair bound in an intricate series of braids. She was dressed like the sorts of wandering mystics Sheska occasionally saw in the markets, with loose pants bound below the knee and a long sleeveless buttoned jacket. Sheska looked down, and saw she had tripped over the woman's staff. Behind the woman, Sheska saw Missus Hughes, with Elysia in her arms. Elysia was wide-eyed and scared, and Missus Hughes was alert, a number of bags slung over her shoulder, and a frown on her face. Taking the rear guard position, Denny followed, glancing over his shoulder.

"Go with the others. We'll be leaving shortly."

"Who are you?" Sheska asked.

"Izumi. No more questions." The woman, Izumi, brushed past her then.

Sheska looked at Denny and Missus Hughes. "Who is that? How did she get in here?"

"She's an Alchemist," Denny said. "She came in through a window." He paused. "At least she can distract the intruder while we get everyone out." He glanced at the direction Izumi had run off towards, the one where the fight was still going on. "Is the back way clear?" he asked.

"It was when I came in," Sheska answered. "But we'll have to head through the front lobby, unless we want to take a window."

"If we have to take a window, so be it," Missus Hughes spoke for the first time, her knuckles white as they kept Elysia up. There was steel in her voice, though. "Denny, can we... what can be done for my husband?"

Denny nodded towards her. "I'll go back for him, ma'am, if Sheska can manage to help you two out."

Sheska nodded. "I can. Go take care of Ambassador Hughes and Maria. Oh, and my guide -- there's a Martian woman about my age downstairs. She has a spaceship."

Sheska saw something flicker across Denny's face when she mentioned Maria. But it was gone almost so quickly that she couldn't be sure exactly what it was. "Take care of yourselves," Denny nodded to her, then sprinted past, drawing his gun.

"Come on, Missus Hughes," Sheska said, pointing toward the apartment.

"Sheska, you know you can call me Gracia. We can use the fire ladder I keep under Elysia's window," Missus Hughes said.

"But it's not a fire," Elysia said. "What's going on? Where's Daddy?"

Missus Hughes shushed her. "We'll meet Daddy outside. It'll be like a fire drill, dear. I need you to be brave, all right?"

Elysia nodded, still looking confused. Sheska devoutly hoped that the ambassador would make it out alive, and they wouldn't have to explain to the little girl what happened.

They entered the apartment and made their way into the bedroom that had been set up for Elysia. Sheska had seen it before, if only because showing off photos of his daughter was one of the ambassador's favorite hobbies. It was painted in a pale shade of pink that at least half of all Earthling girls seemed to like at one point or another, with willowy furniture that could never stand up to a child in normal gravity. Missus Hughes motioned to the box beneath one of the windows. "In there," she said.

Sheska knelt and threw the box open, and found a rope ladder rolled up within. She stood up, opening the window, and then threw the ladder end out. It unrolled as it fell, not fast enough for Sheska's taste. Despite Denny and the strange Martian woman who had come to their rescue, and despite Winry still downstairs, she couldn't shake the feeling that the murderous guard was going to jump out at them from behind the door.

"You go first," Sheksa said. "Then Elysia. That way you can catch her if need be. I'll hold the ladder for you."

Missus Hughes nodded. She set her daughter down, then knelt to face her. "Elysia, when Sheska says so, you get on the ladder and climb down. All right?"

Elysia nodded, still with the wide-eyed look that indicated she didn't know what was going on, and it scared her. "Mommy, don't fall."

"I won't." Missus Hughes scrambled up to the window sill and hoisted herself over onto the ladder. Sheska could see her descend, barely, as it had gotten quite dark. Once she thought Missus Hughes was on the ground, she turned to Elysia. "All right, it's your turn. Want me to lift you up to the window?"

Elysia nodded and Sheska gripped her under the arms and lifted her the two feet to the sill. "Okay, you can just back yourself over. Your mother will catch you if you fall, so don't worry." A fall from the second story would hurt, and she might break a bone if she landed wrong, but wouldn't be as dangerous as if they were on Earth. You could almost jump it, but Sheska would save that for when someone broke the door down. She held the ladder steady as Elysia climbed over and down, then climbed on it herself. She barely felt the rope beneath her hands as she hurried down as quickly as she could.

"Sheska!" That was Winry's voice. Sheska dropped the last couple of feet to the ground as the rest of the group ran out the back door. Denny was supporting a limping Maria, while Izumi had Ambassador Hughes.

"The Embassy has an airvan," Denny was saying. "We can go around to the garage this way."

"What about the guard?" Sheska asked.

"Envy?" Izumi said. "He is tied up at the moment. If we hurry, we will be able to leave without incident." She turned to Winry. "You're Winry Rockbell, correct? Do you happen to have your ship nearby?"

"Outside of town," Winry said. "If no one confiscated it. We landed in a hurry."

"That will be our first stop. The boys... pardon, the princes have asked me to take you to them."


	5. Chapter 4: Mars Past and Future

Thankfully, Winry could open -- or direct others to open while she piloted -- the living quarters of the _Wrench_. The bedding was foreign to Sheska's eyes, mostly large cushions that she, Denny, Izumi and Gracia Hughes removed from storage hatches and laid on the floor for Ambassador Hughes and Maria. As she was doing this, she realized it was to accommodate sleep whether the ship was under drive or landed. They were staying suborbital, so she could still feel Mars pulling on her feet even as she lurched side to side with the bedding. Forward of their struggles, Elysia sat buckled in, clutching a blanket Gracia had given her. Sheska saw Gracia glancing back occasionally, clearly torn between tending her injured husband and comforting her daughter. "I'll check on Elysia, if you want, ma'am," Sheska said.

Sheska used the handrails to guide herself to the seats near the airlock, where Gracia had buckled Elysia in. Gravity made it easier to walk, but the atmospheric turbulence hindered her. She wanted to ask Winry if they were nearly there, or if she could at least find a clear patch of sky to fly through. Elysia looked up when Sheska entered. "Is Daddy going to be okay?" she asked.

"Of course he is." She smiled at the small child. "Master Izumi, Mister Broshe, and your mommy over there are working to make him feel better."

"Okay." Elysia still looked worried.

A book -- from the text, it looked to be one of the dual language ones that were being printed now -- lay next to Elysia, forgotten. "How about I read you a story, Elysia?" Sheska asked.

"Mommy said I could only bring one book, and I read it already. And all the books here are _boring_."

"Well, then I'll have to see if I can remember one and tell it to you," Sheska sat down next to her, buckling herself in, and setting the book below her feet. "Have you ever heard the _Tale of the Alchemist Brothers_?" Elysia shook her head. "Well, a long time ago, two brothers lived with their mother on a farm in the country. Their father had left some time ago on business, but had left his collection of Alchemy books behind. The two boys read the books cover to cover, and did many tricks to entertain their mother. One day, the boys' mother took ill with a fever…"

As she was finishing the story, and Elysia was half asleep, her head pillowed against Sheska's arm and the blanket tucked around her, but still giving her looks when Sheska paused in the story, she felt the ship land. Winry unlocked the hatch to the cockpit, and stuck her head out. "All right. Sheska, could you come with me?."

Sheska nodded. "Right. Elysia, why don't you go see if your mom can put you to bed."

"Don't want to go to bed," Elysia mumbled, half-heartedly, but she unclipped her seatbelt and slid off the seat. "Can I have a drink of water, first?"

"Ask your mom."

Elysia nodded as she staggered aft, still clutching the blanket. She passed Master Izumi, who gracefully stepped out of the way.

"How's the ambassador?" Sheska asked.

Master Izumi looked back as Elysia met her mother, who was already making room for a third cushion. "He and Miss Ross are stable."

Winry nodded. "There will be stretchers outside."

"Where are we, anyway?" Sheska said. "Couldn't Master Izumi make some stretchers by Alchemy or something?"

Master Izumi shook her head. "No need, when there are some here."

Winry opened the inner hatch of the airlock and motioned the other two women inside. "You'll see, Sheska."

They weren't answering her questions at all. "What about Denny?" Sheska asked.

Denny must have heard her, at least. "I'm gonna stay with the ambassador and Maria," he called forward. "You go ahead and get those stretchers."

The three of them crowded into the tiny airlock, and Winry turned the outer hatch, pushing it open. Sheska felt the slight puff of air that meant they had changed pressures, but they were still at a reasonably low altitude. If they had flown all the way up to the summit of Olympus, even Master Izumi would need a vacuum suit to go outside.

Sheska blinked, letting her eyes adapt. They were inside a cave. And, as she looked around, there were crystals _everywhere_. They glittered a bit in the _Wrench_'s running lights. "Winry did a good job flying us in here," she said to herself. She turned to look past the bulk of the _Wrench_ and caught the slightly less than black color of the sky -- a moon must be up outside, either speedy Phobos or larger Deimos. The ground the ship itself had landed on was the normal Martian red basalt, but the crystals covered the way ahead, into the cave itself. Sheska had never heard of a crystal cave on Mars, though she remembered stories of places on rare corners of Earth.

The flickering of the walls signaled someone with a light was approaching. Sheska saw two figures, one carrying a lantern. She shielded her eyes as the cave lit up like a hall of mirrors. "Who's there?" she called.

"It's Ed and Al," Winry said. "Over here!"

_Ed and Al?_ Sheska opened her eyes, looking over the two young men, one carrying a lantern, and one the folded-up frame of a stretcher. Though both were obviously of Martian blood, there was something of Earth in their faces. Though they were wearing similar clothing to Master Izumi, and not clothing suitable for court, Sheska would have recognized the two half-blooded Princes of Mars anywhere.

"Wow, you must have been in some trouble, Winry, if you aren't going to tell me off for asking Master to help you out." Crown Prince Edward smiled at Winry. "We're going to need to talk – I want to know what happened in there."

"Apprentices!" Izumi barked. Both boys turned to face her, with a respect that almost looked like fear, and Sheska had to wonder at what kind of woman could command even the heir to the throne of a planet. "The ambassador was injured. See to him first."

"Yes, Master." Sheska saw Edward exchange a look with Alphonse, and he set his lantern down. The two went inside the _Wrench_, Winry following them. She paused at the hatch, however, and looked at Sheska. "I'm going to help move the ambassador onto the stretcher. We can find somewhere better than the _Wrench_ to set it down."

"Should we move him at all?" Sheska asked.

"I'm afraid we need to consult with the ambassador urgently. The boys will explain, but it seems likely he'll agree." Master Izumi had turned towards the cave opening, her head upturned to face the sky, looking for something.

Winry took a step back towards Sheska and put a hand on her shoulder. "We won't move him unless I'm sure he won't be hurt by it. I know more than a bit about medicine."

Sheska nodded. "If he gives permission, that will have to do."

Ambassador Hughes was awake when they walked back into the cabin where they had left him and Maria to recover. Gracia had already put Elysia to bed in a corner, and she sat on the floor near her husband, while the two princes conversed with him in low tones. The stretcher was unfolded, and Sheska saw that someone had added wheels to it. She didn't remember seeing those when it was folded up, and wondered if one of the princes had transmuted it. Hughes struggled to sit up when she came in.

"Maes," Gracia said, the one world sounding a lot like the warning tone she used with Elysia.

"I'll rest later," Hughes said as they were finishing up. "I need to talk, first."

"Maes." Gracia took her husband's hand in her own. "Don't even think of over-extending yourself. We're in the middle of nowhere, with only Master Izumi and Miss Winry with any sort of medical training, and you're wanted by an entire government unless the princes speak up for you. Don't make it worse by straining yourself." Sheska's eyes widened. She hadn't known about the latter, but someone important would have had to approve the invasion of the Embassy. With the princes obviously out of communication, it wasn't them, but someone important enough that no one would balk at order invading foreign soil.

"A half hour, I promise," Hughes said. "Sheska, could you help me out? Denny can stay here and make sure nothing happens to everyone else."

"You don't trust us, Ambassador?" Crown Prince Edward asked.

"I don't trust the people who have been chasing us," Ambassador Hughes replied. "Certainly not to leave my wife and daughter out of this if they tracked the ship leaving the capital. And if Denny and Gracia have to close the airlock to keep them out, that way we have someone who can let us back in when we get back."

Edward nodded. "Yeah, that makes sense."

Prince Alphonse moved to the edge of the stretcher, and nodded to his brother, who did the same. "The wheels we added should keep it stable, and the path is level enough, but can you guide the stretcher once we get Ambassador Hughes in it, Miss Sheska?"

Sheska nodded. "I think so."

Carefully, but quickly, the brothers lifted the ambassador into the stretcher-turned-gurney. Hughes winced as they set him down. "I'm okay, but I could really use a nap after this," he said.

"More like a full night's sleep," Gracia replied, "in a real hospital."

Sheska nodded. "I'll try to be quick."

"You sure about bringing her?" Edward asked the ambassador.

"Sheska's my assistant. She probably knows more of the details that pass my desk than me, unless it was classified too high for her to read."

"I don't mean to pry..." Sheska stammered.

"Why do you think I hired you?" Hughes replied, smiling. "Being able to keep all the pieces in your head is an asset. And you aren't reading anything you shouldn't, unless you've been getting into the classified data."

Sheska shook her head, feeling a bit embarrassed. She heard the sound of a throat clearing, and saw that Master Izumi had entered the _Wrench_, and was standing, her arms folded.

"Better get this over with and get everyone to bed," Edward said. "Help me get this out."

They maneuvered the supine ambassador through the narrow spaces of the _Wrench_ and out into the cave. Alphonse retrieved the lantern, and led the way, while Edward and Sheska guided the gurney with the ambassador. Winry walked beside when she could, and fell behind when the cave narrowed, and Master Izumi seemed to go where she was needed, sometimes in front to check with Alphonse about the way, sometimes behind and looking back.

To Sheska's surprise, the cave floor was as smooth as Edward had said. Pushing the Alchemy-made wheels on the gurney was as effortless as pushing a shopping cart through a store. The walls continued to be covered in crystals, scattering Alphonse's light into rainbows of refraction. Sheska didn't know what kind of crystals they were -- quartz was rare on Mars, and gypsum mostly present at the poles. She thought she could see the occasional metallic glint of fool's gold -- or maybe even real gold, or copper, or something else.

"So… I've been getting word from Earth that there's something up," Hughes began speaking, his voice echoing in the cave. It was the first sound she had heard besides their five sets of footsteps. Sheska jumped, nearly dropping her hold. "I've got some friends back in Central, who know how to encrypt a message, and friends on Luna who keep me informed. There's some worry by my friends that the current administration has ties to the isolationist movement on Mars."

"The isolationist movement?" Edward frowned. "Why would they do that?"

"I'm just telling you what I was told." Hughes tried to shrug, but winced instead. "A friend of mine in the government asked me to look into things on this end, and to be careful – people have started to disappear on Earth. Ever hear of a man called Doctor Shou Tucker?"

"No, never…"

"He's a brilliant bio-systems engineer. He disappeared last month -- he was going on a research trip to Sedna. We know he boarded the shuttle at the Cape, but no one on the shuttle saw him get on. We wouldn't have known for another two months if his young daughter hadn't gotten worried, and her aunt tried to contact the shuttle en route."

"She's being taken care of, right?" Alphonse spoke up.

"Wha… oh, his daughter. Yes, she's staying with her aunt and uncle for the moment," Hughes said absently. "I tried to contact the Royal Family. Sheska, that was the message you delivered... last morning. Yestersol, now -- it's past midnight."

"The one that went to the Lady Trisha?" Sheska asked. "I couldn't find anyone else to give it to." She tried not to meet the eyes of the princes.

"We weren't there, anyway. We had to get away." Edward paused, and Sheska nearly tripped trying to keep the gurney level. She caught a flicker of something cross his face, before it hardened into a determined stare. He started walking again.

"Ambassador Hughes, we think that the person in the palace isn't Mom," Alphonse said. "It's… well, you would _know_ if someone you were close to was suddenly acting off. Nothing you can put your finger on, but it just feels… wrong."

"Yeah, Your Highness," Hughes nodded, only a brief bob of his head. "If something like that was up with Gracia or Elysia…"

"Good. We couldn't find Father anywhere," and Sheska caught a mutter from Edward as Alphonse said this, "so we went to find Master Izumi. She and Winry and her grandma are the only other people we know well enough to trust. I'm sorry we've caused you so much trouble."

"It's not a pro- hey, we've stopped."

Master Izumi, who had been silent as they walked, turned to face them, standing in front of a series of ornately carved closed doors, made out of the crystal that surrounded them. "We've arrived. What I am about to show you all is for your eyes only. Ambassador, again, do you insist on bringing your assistant into this?"

"Is it dangerous?" Hughes asked.

"What you are about to see has the power to destroy whole worlds," Master Izumi said, in a matter of fact tone, like she was describing the color of the door.

"Oh, my," Sheska took a step back. She looked at the faces of the Martians with her, trying to figure out if they were pulling her leg. All of them looked serious in the lantern light. "If... if Ambassador Hughes needs me to act as Earth's representative, then I'm going with him."

"And I'm going," Hughes said. "If someone gives me a lift."

"Very well."

In a show of drama, Master Izumi motioned Edward forward to join his brother, and, in unison, the two Martian princes gestured. Sheska caught flashes of blue Alchemical fire flying between their fingertips. She looked to Winry, who was watching with some degree of interest.

Then Izumi tapped the door with her staff. The sound seemed to echo in the suddenly quiet cavern. The doors opened inward, with no sound whatsoever, like they were gliding on air. Winry slipped to the spot Edward had vacated. "Come on," she said, softly. With a nervous swallow, Sheska took a step forward, then some more steps, bringing herself and the ambassador through the door.

"The Kepler Gate."

***

Sheska stared out into infinity curled into the rock. The cave had to be as big as Olympus -- or maybe not, but the sheer scale dwarfed any _real_ comparison she could make. She wasn't even sure how far away anything was in the clear, cold air. They stood on a balcony attached to the wall, overlooking the structure. Alchemical sparks danced from the glass spires and crystalline spheres and clockwork gears of some metal she couldn't identify meted out time in a rhythm Sheska couldn't catch. It was damp, and slick, and iridescent, and she swore she could hear the sound of water rushing below.

Winry looked on the site with awe -- clearly she hadn't seen it before, as Master Izumi and the princes had. "What… what does it _do_?" she asked.

"It's built over an old magma chamber," Edward replied, taking his eyes away from the massive machine. "The outer part of the cave looks like a lava tube, but the crystal parts are artificial -- it's hard to tell, but the floor was leveled with Alchemy, and the side passages are too regular. The core," he motioned to the machine, "was built to teleport comets from the Kuiper Belt. Run them through the atmosphere a couple times to evaporate all the water, and in a couple years your water table would rise a bit. Do it often enough and you have a wet planet." He sighed. "Reading ancient Martian is _tiring_ -- you think they would have left a User's Manual with pictures."

"I'll bet I could figure it out,"

Edward's hand grabbed Winry's arm before she was even halfway to the causeway that lead towards the center of the chamber. "Don't, Winry. We have to be careful with this thing -- we don't even know what powers it, but, whatever it is, it's strong."

"I'm always careful!" But she was moving back towards the doorway as she said that.

"I imagine this is what the Isolationists want," Hughes commented. "Bringing comets in from billions of miles away is probably more difficult than knocking spacecraft out of orbit, but it's the same principle."

"Got it in one, Ambassador." Edward grinned, then turned back to look over the massive edifice. "Plus, the extra water wouldn't hurt -- we're still dependent on trade with Earth for food. Would be nice not to sell our souls to get a bite to eat."

"He really doesn't mean to be offensive," Alphonse added quickly.

"No, I get your point," Hughes said. "Give a man a fish, and he'll eat for a day; teach a man to fish and he'll eat for the rest of his life."

"How did you find this, anyway?" Sheska asked. "I've heard a few old rumors, but nothing definite. It'd be like looking for the Philosopher's Stone back on Earth."

"Father was interested in looking for it, but after he took the throne, he never could find the time," Alphonse said. "He left most of the notes to Brother and me. We've been working on this for four years, under the eyes of Master Izumi."

"I told them not to bother." Master Izumi sighed. "It would only bring trouble."

Alphonse looked down. "Sorry, Master."

"We finally had a breakthrough, and we sent a message to the old man – in code, of course," Edward continued. "By the time we got back, he's nowhere to be found, and some… some _thing_ is pretending to be our mother and trying to get us to tell her where we've been. We left pretty quickly, and called Master Izumi."

"I see," Hughes nodded. "I'm going to need to think about how to proceed." He winced a bit "And I better get some rest, before this opens up again."

"I can show you and your family to a room," Master Izumi said. "Al, could you help me?"

"Right." The two moved Hughes outside. Sheska heard the gurney go down the hall.

"What happened to him and the woman, anyway?" Edward asked. Sheksa saw Winry look away.

"We ran into one of the palace guards on the way out. He attacked Maria and the ambassador tried to cover our escape. The guard… whatever he was, it wasn't normal. The ambassador threw his knives into him, and he didn't even blink."

"I… I was going to shoot him, but I couldn't pull the trigger," Winry said softly. "If Master Izumi hadn't shown up…"

"Not everyone can," Edward said, taking her hands. "The universe would probably be a better place if no one could. Anyway, why do you need a weapon?" He turned to face her, grinning. "You have enough intelligence for two people, know more first aid than Al and me combined, and you can be downright nasty with a toolbox."

"You're very lucky that you're surrounded by priceless machinery," Winry said. "Otherwise we might have to test that."

"I think you were very brave, too," Sheska said softly. "If you hadn't distracted Envy, he might have killed the ambassador before help came."

"And what about you?" Winry smiled at her. "You were right behind me, and ran out into the open unarmed so you could get Missus Hughes and Elysia away."

"Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time," Sheska said. "I hadn't really thought about it much."

"Well, I hope you two are happy. I'm done feeling sorry for myself now." She beamed at them. "The old Winry Rockbell is back. Look out Mars!"

Alphonse came skidding into the room then. "Brother! Winry! Miss Sheska! You better come quickly! We're getting a radio message. It's... it's about Mom!"


	6. Chapter 5: Lady Dante

The five assembled by the _Wrench's_ videophone. Ambassador Hughes was conspicuous only by his absence -- Sheska figured Gracia was holding him to her bed rest policy after he had been shown the Kepler Gate, and that Denny would be with the Hughes family and Maria. "The signal's on hold. It's just a general broadcast, but encrypted, so they don't know where we are." Alphonse asked.

"Who is it?"

"It's a noblewoman," Alphonse replied. "She said her name was Lady Dante of Noctis Labyrinthus."

"Dante… Dante…" Edward looked like he was trying to place the name. "Can't say I've heard of her." He straightened his tunic. "Let's do this. Push the button, Winry."

"Hang on for a second." Winry had a number of wires out from a panel, and a few of her devices. She reached up and tapped something and the screen lit up. The woman looked familiar to Sheska, and, with a start, she realized it was the noblewoman she had met next to the mural in at the palace yestersol. It seemed like a lifetime ago that she was merely the ambassador's assistant, rather than standing next to the heir to the Martian throne less than a mile from one of the most priceless and powerful archaeological finds in the history of the Solar System.

"Greetings, Your Highness." Dante's mouth was smiling, but her eyes looked more like a cat that had finally found the mouse it had been chasing. Her headpiece cast shadows over her face, adding to the creepy look. Sheska blinked, noticing the feathers were the same color and type that Envy had worn. In the background, she could hear water running faintly. "I trust your captors are treating you well? I assure you, Earth and the multilateralists will not get away with this."

"Cut the crap, Dante," Edward said. Sheska saw his brother roll his eyes. "We're here of our own free will. Now, either no one told you this, and you can rescind those warrants on Ambassador Hughes and Winry Rockbell and whoever else you've been chasing, or you knew damn well my brother and I weren't kidnapped and just wanted to grab whoever you thought might know where we were holed up."

Dante sighed, letting the smile drop from her face. "You couldn't make this simple, could you? Very well, then -- you've no doubt figured out that there is an impostor posing as your mother at the palace, telling people that your father is away. In truth, the impostor is working for me. I have custody of your parents in an undisclosed location. Now, you can either tell me where the Kepler Gate is, or I'll be forced to be a bit unreasonable towards them."

"I don't believe you," Edward said. "If you want anything more than a disconnect after a very detailed and scientific explanation where you can stick your impostor, I'm going to need proof."

"You're as much a scientist as your father, Prince Edward," Dante said. "Give me a moment." The screen went blank.

"Do you think she's telling the truth?" Alphonse asked.

"If she was, how could she capture two of the best-guarded people on Mars?" Sheska asked.

"Inside access." Edward was pacing the length of the cockpit now, which wasn't more than two steps. "As nobility, she'd have the ability to get into the palace, with a small staff of bodyguards. Go after Mom first – since she's from Earth, she doesn't know Alchemy. Then… somehow sneak her out -- still working on that -- and use the impostor to go after Dad, before he hears the news. Even an Alchemist can be surprised. Damn it all!" He slammed a hand against the bulkhead. "Why weren't we around to protect her? How could we let this happen? What-"

His beating of the _Wrench_'s walls was interrupted not by Winry yelling at him, though Sheska noted that she was gripping a screwdriver in a threatening way, but by Master Izumi standing and placing her staff between him and the bulkhead. "Still your heart, Edward," she said. "What good is asking all of those questions? You assumed the security of the palace was enough to protect your mother, and Alchemy was enough to protect your father. You assumed incorrect, but that is in the past. What matters now is protecting your parents in the present, and the future."

Alphonse had stood as well. "She's right, Brother. We kind of screwed up, didn't we? But it's not too late to make things right."

"All right, but 'making things right' better not include beating my ship into scrap metal," Winry said. "If you must beat something up, there are plenty of rocks outside."

Edward nodded and turned back to face them, rubbing his hand. The screen beeped as the signal returned. Dante was standing with Lady Trisha Elric, who looked very frazzled, but not injured. Behind her, Sheska caught a glimpse of Envy with a photon rifle. "Mom?" Edward asked.

"Hello, boys," Trisha said. She was smiling, but even Sheska could see the worry in her eyes.

"Mom… Mom, do you remember when Alphonse and I were little and starting to learn Alchemy…" Edward asked, a glint of something in his eyes.

Trisha smiled. "You and your brother would always listen to my stories about Earth, and you two decided that I must miss it. So you made me a horse out of tinfoil, because the only things you had seen about Earth at the time were cowboy movies."

"That's… that's right." Both princes' faces were stoic, but Sheska caught the glimmer of tears in Alphonse's eyes.

"Satisfied?" Dante asked. "If you are willing to cooperate, fly back to Cyndonia by local sunset tomorrow and meet me in the palace. I look forward to seeing you then." The signal was cut off before anyone could respond.

"Doesn't look like we have much of a choice," Edward said. "If we knew where she was-"

Winry sighed. "She's in the Northern Hemisphere. I'd say within ten degrees of one-eighty longitude. She's got good scramblers."

"How…?" Edward looked surprised for a moment, then grinned. "Should have figured you'd be tracking things while we talked."

"That's pretty flat terrain," Sheska said. "Nothing but plains until you hit Elysium or the Tharsis bulge, or the polar cap. I heard a waterfall, though."

"She must be at one of the polar pumping stations!" Winry said. "They use the meltwater to make hydroelectric power, while channeling it down to the cities."

"Great… Al and I can go get Mom," Edward said. "It's too dangerous for you two. You've done enough."

"Not in my ship without me along!" Winry stood up.

"We have our own ship," Edward said. "As I said, you've done enough. We can take it from here."

"Knowing you two, you'll just end up rushing in, with no plan whatsoever?"

"Like that's any different from how you act." Edward crossed his arms.

"Hang on!" Sheska yelled, causing everyone, even Master Izumi, to look at her. "Prince Edward and Alphonse might be the best suited for this mission, but Winry and I can at least provide backup. I"ll check with the ambassador, but he'll probably want Denny with him and his family, and I can't speak for Master Izumi. Let's see what plan we can come up with before we write anyone off."

* * *

"Water, water, everywhere and not a drop to drink." Sheska eyed the ice cliff to the north, rosy-hued and sparkling in the low sun. All around her, the ground was bare of anything living, and covered in rippling sand dunes. There wasn't even the scraggly ground cover breaking up the monotony of Martian rocks. An open sky seemed to make the place even more desolate, even more remote. The pumping station looked like it was about to be crushed between sky and ice and stone and sand.

Alphonse glanced at the ship's chronometer. "Master Izumi should be in position now," he said. Master Izumi had volunteered to take the Princes' ship to Lady Dante's meeting point, to create a distraction, as she put it. She had offered to have Sheska come with her, but Sheska had declined, feeling more comfortable with Winry than the strange Alchemist. If she had been smart, she would have taken it -- it would be safer, probably. Of course, if she was really as smart as all that, she would have remained in the hidey-hole that Master Izumi had put the Hughes family and their guards in.

"Let's go, Brother." Alphonse clipped on a headset.

Edward did likewise. "Right."

"You two are lucky that I'm the only one who can work the controls," Winry said. "Otherwise, I'd be right there in with you."

"And I keep telling you, it's too dangerous," Edward replied. "This is our problem, not yours."

"And me nearly being arrested because I happen to know you doesn't make it my problem?" Winry replied. "Plus, Auntie Trisha is important to me too."

"It's not worth arguing over," Sheska quickly interjected, "since we have to stay here for support." In truth, she was kind of glad they were staying behind -- while running around on a rescue mission sounded exciting, she didn't think she'd do anything besides slow everyone else down. She waved as the two boys left the _Wrench_, sneaking along the ice cliff.

"They'll be all right, Winry," Sheska said, watching Winry watch them. "I'm sure Master Izumi's taught them well."

"I know, I know…" Winry turned back towards her controls. "It's just… well, we grew up together. They're the two annoying brothers I never had, and I was the little sister _they_ never had. I would always tag along after them when we played. I think the only thing that stopped me from trying to follow them into Alchemy was that Granny started teaching me about mechanical things and piloting." She smiled, probably thinking of past days. "So, I worry about them."

Sheska nodded. "I'm an only child, myself. I mostly grew up reading." Seeing that Winry was still looking worriedly out the window, she added, "Why don't we play a game to pass the time? Do you know how to play chess?"

Winry nodded. "There's a magnetic board in the storage closet, and a table folds down over behind my shoulder."

Sheska got up, switching on the lights, and got the board. She set up the pieces, and they started to play. Neither of them was particularly good at it, but they were only down a rook and a couple of pawns each when the radio crackled to life.  "Winry? Do you copy?" Edward's voice sounded tinny and staticy through the receiver.

"I'm here, Ed," Winry said. "Have you found them yet?"

"Not yet… but we found out what Envy and not-Mom are -- Dante left the spare parts lying around. They're androids -- you know, humanoid robots. She had to have built them in her manor or somewhere, or someone would have noticed."

"Androids? Well, that would explain why knife wounds him didn't slow him down," Winry commented, still holding the queen she had been moving.

"We're going to try the next- we got company. Later, Winry."

"Ed! Wait just a second!" Winry frowned, dropping the queen. "Idiot…" She started tweaking the knobs on her radio. "I think I can get the background noise."

They heard the sounds of footsteps over the radio, and voices too indistinct to make out, occasionally punctuated with a crash. Winry sighed, and continued working. "Come on, you piece of junk… it would help if whoever Ed's fighting wouldn't make so much noise, so I could amplify the weak parts of the signal better…"

The radio hissed and popped, and suddenly the sound cut in. "…say that your brother… than you, Shorty… I took him out..." The voice was Envy, but was nearly drowned in static.

"What did you do to Al? I swear, if you've hurt him…" Edward's voice was much clearer and louder. He was still wearing the headset, apparently, even if he wasn't talking to Winry and Sheska.

"Of course I ... would be stupid … you two alive to answer … really only needs one... going to surrender, Shorty?"

"It doesn't look like I have much of a choice." There was a trace of cockiness in Edward's voice, but it sounded strained. There was a loud crash, and the signal cut out. Winry swore under her breath as she tried to bring it back.

"Someone busted the transmitter. Ed, you idiot!" Winry stood up, knocking the chessboard over. The pieces stayed stuck to the board, mostly, but Sheska noticed that the edge of the table had caught her queen and two knights and sent them flying. "We have to go rescue them!"

"But," Sheska said, "they probably know that Prince Edward brought a ship. They'd be expecting us, or Master Izumi or someone. We can't just go through the front door, like they did."

"You're right," Winry said. "We need another way in. Sheska, can you swim?"

"Swim?" Sheska asked. "What does that have to do with anything?"


	7. Chapter 6: A Death in the Family

Sheska _really_ should have just stayed in the _Wrench_, but Winry was going to need all the help she could get. Not to mention Sheska's upbringing in a stronger gravity field than Mars did come in handy. For one, even wearing the vacuum suit that Winry had stored in the _Wrench_, it was still possible for her to scramble up the icy slopes up to the polar cap, setting pitons into the ice to keep herself, and Winry roped behind her, steady. She had never climbed rocks, or ice before, and was pretty much working from a short lesson and the fact that the face of the ice was more of a scramble than a sharp cliff.

This wasn't going to be a quick rescue. Not at all. But it would be a surprise, to descend through the pumping equipment from above. The suits, designed for conditions far harsher than a pipe full of meltwater, would let them breathe until they could get to a spot where they could cut themselves out of the pipes and into the corridors of the station. Winry had shown Sheska a blueprint, and she could see the route in her mind's eye. They both carried tools from the ship -- no weapons, though. On the other hand, Winry, at least, looked far more comfortable with this gear than the photon pistol she had tried to use earlier.

The suits also had the benefit of being warmer and cleaner than the clothing Sheska had put on the morning before. Still, their breath frosted in the air, and it felt like shards of ice cut into her lungs when she inhaled. Her face was already going numb, and her eyes were watering. Even Winry would occasionally touch her face, as if to reassure herself that nose and ears were still there. They had left helmets unattached to keep their peripheral vision intact, and make the unpressurized suits easier to move in as they scrambled to the top, but Sheska thought the frostbite might not be worth all that.

Sheska pulled herself up to the top and, after checking her footing, offered Winry a hand up. There were small robots on the top of the ice, mining it and scooping it into the hopper at the side of the pumping station. They paid no attention to the two people walking, besides to occasionally detour around them. "They can't see us, can they?" Sheska asked, looking at their camera-eyes mounted on masts above their wheeled bodies and the sample bins.

"They're stupid," Winry said. "They only see whether things are ice or not, and if they can roll over them. I don't think they even radio to base about what they see, unless they get stuck." She considered. "But Lady Dante might have changed them to send pictures back normally. Let's pick up the pace." Sheska nodded.

The top of the pumping station had a door next to the ice hopper, and Winry was able to wedge it open with a screwdriver. Sheska winced. "They definitely know we're here now."

"If there was an alarm," Winry said, her head cocked to one side. "No one comes up to the pole if they can avoid it."

"Which is probably why Lady Dante did," Sheska said.

The upper room was a utilitarian space, with dials showing water flow and the power from the weak sunlight and geothermal heat brought from the mantle. But the main occupants of the room were pipes of all sizes, from ones narrower to Sheska's wrist to those big enough to fit a person easily. She could hear the sound of rushing water and feel the heat from below used to turn ice into something that could flow thousands of miles to civilization.

Winry walked over to the dials like she knew what she was doing. "All right, I'll turn off the water flow around the heat source. We can then climb in, and the remaining flow should take us down. You have the map of the plumbing memorized, right, Sheska?" Sheska nodded. "Good. Then just stand back and let me work." Winry checked the dials, then walked over to a set of heavy valves. She grabbed one and started turning.

"Do you need an extra hand?" Sheska asked, after Winry had set things down and got out oil and wrench from her toolkit.

Winry shook her head. "No, I have it now." She gave the valve a final twist, and pulled a hatch open. Water trickled out. "The water level's falling, but the rest of the pipeline will be mostly full. Let's go." She picked up her toolkit and clipped it to her belt, then pulled herself up into the pipe, offering Sheska her hand. "Give me your helmet, then hand me mine. I'll help you up once I make sure it won't float away."

Sheska did so, then watched as Winry sealed hers before returning her hand to help Sheska up. She took it, but, even so, it was quite a scramble to get herself up, and she ended up in ice-cold water on her hands and knees. She could feel the cold through her suit, meaning the trip through the pipes to where Lady Dante was would be even less pleasant than she had thought it would be. "We should have used a stool," Sheska replied. Winry shook her head and tapped her helmet. "Right, right." Sheska realized that the airtight suit wouldn't transmit sound very well. She put her own helmet on, checked the seals on the heads-up display, then hit the buttons on the suit's chest panel to seal it.

She heard the slight hiss as air started to flow, a bit stale-smelling and lacking the dry cold of the wind flowing off the cap that made her face feel like leather. "Winry?" Sheska said, hearing her voice echo within her helmet.

"Here. Let's go." Winry's voice was different over the radio, and there was a bit of static, but her words were clear. They switched on head lamps, and started moving.

There was a drop five feet from their entrance, but a ladder was bolted to the side, in case repairs by a human crew were needed. Sheska called up the plans in her mind as she descended. "Thirty feet down." There was water trickling over the ladder, and she was afraid she'd lose her grip through the suit gauntlets. Already she could feel her fingers tingling, and soon they'd go numb.

"The water's still fifteen feet from the bottom," Winry replied. "Get the magnets in your boots ready." Sheska nodded. As they entered the water, she could feel the current pulling her down and to the side, and she had to use her safety line to clamp herself down to turn the magnets on. Even with the suit air, the feeling of being sucked into the dark water made Sheska struggle to keep breathing evenly. She could hear her heartbeat racing inside her head. Winry's breathing seemed even, if fast, over the radio, which made Sheska envious -- Winry was braver than she was.

They hit a horizontal intersection then, and Sheska was tempted to let the flow of the water do the work. She was freezing, and felt like she should be wet all over, but it was just sweat. She could see Winry ahead of her, moving in a way that wasn't quite swimming or walking, but almost like she was back in microgravity.

Sheska counted the drops, where they let gravity pull them down through the water. After the last long drop that made her think they were headed all the way to the core, and where they had to keep slowing their fall to avoid the hard landing at the bottom, she motioned to Winry to follow her as she counted body-lengths in the dark pipe. "Okay, cut here," she said.

Winry took out a laser cutter and the steam caused Sheska to step back, suddenly feeling the heat all over. She used the boot magnets to cling to the top of the pipe, feeling the mix of eddies of hot water pushing away and the flow of water out of the hole Winry was making.

"Now!" Sheska felt the clang of metal through her boots with Winry's call over the radio, and something gave way. She released the magnets and was pulled out and down with the rushing water, and slid a bit across the wet floor before she got her bearings.

Winry was already on her feet and pulling off the suit. "We'll need to move quickly," she whispered. Sheska nodded, even though taking off the cumbersome suits would slow them down at first. Silently, the two crept in stockinged feet out of the room, and down the hall. Winry had kept her laser cutter, and had given Sheska the wrench she had used on the valves above. _We just can't seem to go anywhere without sneaking around,_ Sheska thought. _It's better than a firefight, though._

"Going somewhere?" The two turned around to see that the impostor Trisha Elric was behind them. At least, Sheska guessed it was the impostor, as she doubted the real Lady Trisha would be free to wander.

Winry scrambled away, bringing the laser cutter up, but the not-Trisha's hand darted out, grabbing her wrist. Sheska swung the wrench Winry had given her, but it was blocked effortlessly. "Run, Sheska!" Winry yelled, and Sheska nearly did, but hesitated, hating to leave Winry behind. This was enough time for not-Trisha to get a hold of her too.

"Now, dears, it's rude to come in uninvited without knocking first. You should really apologize to your host." Before either could get in a snappy retort, she started walking, forcing both women to run to keep up, lest their arms be tugged off.

Lady Dante had turned the lower control room that they had been heading for into a veritable mad scientist's laboratory – it was a wonder that the water had been flowing until Winry had turned it down for their entrance. Cables and half-open pieces of equipment covered three of the walls, and, in the center, like a spider in her web, stood Dante. Behind her, was an examining table with a large cobbled-together something-or-other hovering over it. On the table was Alphonse, apparently unconscious or… no, he still was breathing, though he had a nasty-looking bruise developing over his right temple. Sheska spotted Edward and the real Trisha Elric in the corner, being guarded by Envy. While Lady Trisha was only restrained by a set of manacles and a gag, Edward could barely move but for restraints. However, he was free to speak, and Sheska was surprised to see him silent, given the state of his mother and brother.

"What do we have here, Sloth?" Dante asked not-Trisha in a tone that Sheska thought was straight from a movie.

Not-Trisha -- Sloth, and Sheska was beginning to sense a theme in Dante's names -- tugged them over to the other prisoners. "I caught them trying to sneak in," she said as she restrained Winry and Sheska with handcuffs similar to Lady Trisha's. "I figured that you would like to know."

"Indeed I would. Now, Your Highness," Dante said as she turned back to Edward, and Sloth took Envy's guard position, "as you can see, I have four prisoners. How many people am I going to have to have Envy kill before you tell me the location of the Kepler Gate?"

Edward didn't look at all like the confident young prince he had been when Sheska last saw him. He kept glancing from his brother to his mother and then back to Dante. "How do I know you won't just kill us all anyway so we won't stop you?"

Dante considered that. "Hope. I'm told it's a virtue. Besides, I have no desire to rule this planet, merely make sure there aren't any more unfortunate... mistakes made by the Royal Family."

"In other words, you want to be the puppet master behind the throne."

Dante nodded. "I have my own research interests. I'd rather not be bogged down as Hohenheim is with the minutiae of governance. Though no longer having to kowtow to Earth to keep our people alive will improve the time he -- and you, of course -- can spend on domestic concerns."

"Research interests. The androids, right?" Edward asked. "Among other things," Dante answered. "But that is of no concern right now." She waved a hand, and Envy took a step towards the unconscious Alphonse. Sheska saw the gleam of a knife in his hand, and a smile which chilled her to the bone. "Have you thought about it?" Dante asked, not even looking towards the impending violence behind her.

Sheska watched all of them. Winry's eyes were wide and she looked about ready to cry. Lady Trisha had her head bent and eyes closed. As for Sheska herself, the whole thing just didn't seem real.

Edward turned his head, looking at each person in turn. He was frowning, and his head was bent. He cast his eyes to the floor, and Sheska noticed how the expression mirrored his mother's, despite his strong physical resemblance to his father. "It's on a cave near Arisa Mons. Latitude six degrees south, longitude one-twenty degrees west. You can check the satellite photos if you want a more precise location." "There's caves all over there," Envy said, holding the knife to Al's throat.

Edward gave a sharp hiss of breath. "I know that. Do you think I have the exact coordinates memorized or something? That will get you close enough, dammit!"

Dante raised a hand. "Envy, enough. Sloth, prepare our ship. We'll finish the preparations here."

"Yes, milady." Sloth straightened up, and headed for the door.

"We should just kill them anyway," Envy replied. "Not like you couldn't make a copy like Sloth if you didn't want someone else moving in on the throne. Just leave out most of the loyalty programs that make her too dumb to take care of herself without your orders."

"What?" Edward tried to pull away from his bindings.

Dante waved Envy off. "You forget then I'd have to build more androids when our Technocrat needed a heir. Easier to keep nobility around, even if Hohenheim diluted the blood with his choice of spouse."

"Don't you talk about my mother like that!"

Sheska saw that Winry was trying to pull something from her back pocket. She shifted position, hoping that would block Dante and Envy's vision. They seemed more interested in taunting Edward than in the rest of their prisoners. Lady Trisha wasn't even responding to the obvious insult -- Sheska wondered if she was hurt or something. She was still breathing slow and even, and she looked conscious, but she was sitting stiller than Sheska herself was.

Dante walked over to the table where Alphonse was spread on it like an etherized patient. "You do have one point, though, Envy. I have no way of knowing how truthful Edward is being. His mentor is still at large, and she might well be setting a trap for us. A shame that Alchemists are immune to truth drugs."

Envy leaned against the wall. "You going to give me some instructions, Mother dearest, or are you just going to monolog to your captive audience?"

'Mother?' Winry mouthed. Sheska shrugged. If Dante was the creator of these robots, than perhaps that was kind of like a parent. Sloth had addressed Dante as milady, but then, she probably had been created just to serve as Lady Trisha's double. Who knew what Envy's purpose was, besides as Dante's thug?

Dante's eyes narrowed. "Do not call me 'mother' -- I may be your creator, but you are no child of mine."

"Yes, _Creator_ Dearest." Envy rolled his eyes. "So what are your orders, O Giver of My Life?"

"Upload the younger brother's mind to the spare android body. We'll ask it, then kill the original."

"As you command." Sarcasm dripped from Envy's voice, but he was moving out of view, presumably to get the android.

The scream of rage Prince Edward let out drowned out all other sounds. He started shouting invective in three languages, mostly threatening horrible retribution against Dante, Envy, Sloth and anyone else who would dare touch his little brother. He thrashed in his bindings trying to free himself by sheer force of his anger. Sheska saw Lady Trisha had tears in her eyes, trying to hold her elder son with tied hands -- whether to make sure he was still alive and well, or to calm him down, she couldn't tell. Winry looked frozen in shock, just staring at the metallic humanoid Envy was rolling out on a gurney, still as a corpse, or a puppet whose strings were cut.

_I'm the only one who doesn't know Prince Alphonse well. I need to help everyone get focused to escape. Somehow._ Sheska didn't have much time. Her own breath was catching in her throat from watching Edward, and she closed her eyes and tried to drown out the screams. _This isn't happening. I have to do something to stop this!_

She nudged Winry hard. "Psst!" Winry just looked at her, face scrunched up and crying. "I know," Sheska said, wanting to hug the other young woman. She dropped her voice, hoping that Edward screaming himself hoarse would cover the sound. "Were you cutting the bonds?" Winry nodded. "Get us free, and maybe we can stop them." Out of the corner of her eye, she saw all manner of tubes and wires being brought out to connect Prince Alphonse to the robot like some kind of twisted conjoined twin. Alphonse stirred a bit, not yet conscious. Sheska hoped that, whatever happened, he wouldn't be in pain.

"I... only Ed can overcome Lady Dante and Envy," Winry said, her voice choked with sobs. "I can't free him without them noticing. There's too much."

"Maybe you can cut the power, or something?" Sheska said. "If you can get the rest of us free, Lady Trisha and I will do what we can." Which would probably involve dying horribly. Neither of them were armed, and Envy moved faster than even a soldier like Maria could handle. And Dante looked harmless, but many Martian nobles were also Alchemists, so she would be capable of far more than throwing punches. "We have to try."

Winry nodded, closing her eyes. Sheska saw her starting to move her hands again, and thought she heard the snap of something being cut. Edward's voice was giving out, and he was starting to slump against his mother, exhausted. _This is about when Master Izumi or the Technocrat should be charging in to rescue us,_ Sheska thought. They were all trying so hard, but she was afraid they'd all die here, except for Prince Edward, who would be bound up by Lady Dante as her puppet on the throne. Sheska regretted every adventure book she read and idle daydream she had, and anything that would make her seek out danger instead of staying at home. Because it wasn't supposed to end like this.

The hum of the generators, which had been building as Dante and Envy worked, built to a crescendo. Dante had moved to the head of the robot, and was adjusting something, while Envy had stepped out of the way. "Now, Envy."

The lights flickered. Sheska thought there should be sparks, or a roll of thunder, or something. Or at least Dante's mad laughter, but she was speaking merely loud enough to be heard over the equipment.

Alphonse gave a sharp, rasping breath from the table, making his mother wince, and Edward give a final sob. Dante didn't seem to notice. "Everything should be transferred. Now, Android, tell me where the Kepler Gate is?"

"Latitude six degrees thirty-two minutes south, longitude one hundred nineteen degrees fifty-seven minutes west." The robot's voice was bereft of anything recognizable as Alphonse, or anything distinguishing as human. It didn't even sound male or female, and the voice still had a synthetic buzz to it. "The cave is an old lava tube, and it is part of a chain of depressions running in a northeast to southwest direction." There was no inflection to the tone. He might as well have been reading out numbers from the phone directory.

"Excellent," Dante said. "That confirms what Prince Edward said."

"So leave my fucking brother alone!" Edward yelled, surprising Sheska. She thought his stream of invective meant he wasn't paying attention to Dante and Envy.

"We taking the new guy with us?" Envy asked. "I don't want to lug him around until he figures out how to work his damn legs. Plus, it's creepy. Like seeing someone without their skin."

"Check his coordinates on the atlas, then, and see if you see the cave." Dante snapped back. "If you can figure out which one it is, then by all means, leave him behind."

Envy went to look at something -- the atlas, presumably. Sheska glanced at Winry. 'Ready', she mouthed, tilting her head to the side. Winry didn't say a thing, or even nod her head, but Sheska felt something rasp against her handcuffs.

"Yeah, I got it. Let's get the hell out of here and finish making the tin can presentable later," Envy called. "I'm so damn sick of this entire thing. It's boring."

"Quiet, you," Dante said. "If I find out that you are overestimating your own abilities..."

"I said I had it," Envy said. "What more do you want from me? Like I care if we have to haul the tin can around as a guide. We can make Sloth do it, in case the crazy hermit woman is guarding this Gate thing."

Dante waved him off. "Just be mindful that if we do have to come back here before we have secured the Kepler Gate, you will be the one punished for it. Is that understood?"

Envy rolled his eyes. "Yes, ma'am. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go make sure Sloth hasn't fallen into the fuel tank." He crouched by the bare android, turning it off, then sauntered off.

"Damn robot. Always remembers his previous orders when I have a task for him. I should put in the loyalty codes one of these sols. Now," she said, "I believe there was one more thing I had to do." Sheska saw her draw a wicked-looking knife

Sheska felt her manacles snap, and she and Winry rushed to their feet. But it was too late -- Dante had already sealed the door behind her, and Alphonse was quickly bleeding out.


	8. Chapter 7: Sons and Other Creations

"No!" Winry and Edward seemed to cry in unison. Winry quickly passed off her hacksaw to Sheska. "Get Ed free! I'll do what I can."

Sheska looked at Edward. She wasn't sure if he was conscious of her or not -- he was transfixed by the sight on the table. She started cutting the bonds that bound him, praying that somehow his Alchemy could save his brother's life. As she worked, trying to ignore whatever Winry was doing, she saw a second pair of hands join her, shaking, but working steadily to free the Martian prince. Lady Trisha's face was white as a sheet, but Winry had freed her hands too, and she must have removed the gag.

"Ed," she said, softly.

"Mom?" His voice was so quiet Sheska could barely hear him, and still hoarse from screaming. Suddenly she felt like she shouldn't be listening to their conversation, even if her hands and tools were needed in order for Prince Alphonse to have any chance at all.

"I'm so proud of you and your brother," Lady Trisha said, sounding like she was about to cry. "I didn't want you to be involved, but..."

"But, Mom, Al's..."

"You need to help Winry now," Trisha said. "Don't blame yourself." She placed a hand on his shoulder.

Edward nodded. As Sheska cut the last bit free, he stood up, shakily, but with a fire in his eyes. "I won't let you down, Mom."

"You never let me down."

"Ed!" Winry yelled. "I'm losing him! Get over here!"

Ed flashed her a panicked look. "What do I do? Alchemy doesn't work on people that well. Do you need tools?"

"I don't know! Grandma's the doctor, not me. I just studied first aid and emergency response."

"This is an emergency!"

"Which is why I should be getting Al to a hospital, with an ambulance!"

Both of them were working as they argued, but Sheska could see that Alphonse already looked like a corpse. There was so much blood, she felt like she was going to throw up from just the smell without even looking at it. She was amazed that Edward and Winry were even able to function.

"I can't feel his heart beating any more!" Winry yelled.

"I can make a shock?" Edward's voice had more than an edge of terror to it.

"That won't work. Not if I can't stop the bleeding."

"Get clear anyway!" Winry practically jumped away and Sheska saw the body jerk as Edward touched its chest... his chest, dammit, with his hands.

"What about the android?" Lady Trisha said. "That woman copied Alphonse's mind over there."

"But Aunty Trisha, it's not the same thing at all," Winry said. "You're not Sloth, and that isn't Al."

Trisha shook her head. "That woman put in enough constraints in so Sloth couldn't act freely. If it were me, I'd be driven insane if she made me hurt my children. But... if you and Ed can disable her programming before the android wakes fully, then maybe..."

"We don't have a choice if we want to save Al," Winry said. "Do we?"

Edward looked up at his mother. His hands were covered in his brother's blood and his face looked like the end of the world. "We gotta save Al. If Mom thinks that this is the best way, then I'm going to do what I gotta do. Just..." he motioned to the still body that was once his brother. "Don't let him see that. He'll be sad enough that we couldn't save him... his body."

Lady Trisha nodded, taking the tarp that had covered the robot, and gently laying it over her son. "You're as smart as your father, and Winry is one of the best mechanics I know. You'll figure it out. The young lady and I will wait outside."

Sheska realized Lady Trisha meant her, and let her guide her away from the grisly scene, and the grim silence as Winry and Prince Edward set to work on the robot that had become the housing for Alphonse's mind. "Where are we going?" she asked.

"I needed to tell you what I learned about Dante," Lady Trisha said. "I don't want to put Edward in a position where he needs to chose between helping me with his father and stopping Dante, so you and Winry might have to go on alone."

"Where _is_ the Technocrat?" Sheska asked. "Shouldn't he be..."

Lady Trisha shook her head. "I don't know. Dante attempted to use Sloth as bait for him, but I don't know if she found him and is holding him somewhere else, or if he escaped her and is in hiding somewhere, gathering resources to find us. Ed would be better at going through Dante's books than I would so we can get a hold of him."

Sheska nodded. "So it's up to us to stop Dante, as soon as Winry can be spared. Unless you can fly her ship."

Lady Trisha shook her head. "I can try to call Master Izumi, if you know where she is."

"Somewhere in the capital, but she didn't give us details. She just found somewhere on Mars to hide Ambassador Hughes and his family, and then took off to draw Dante's attention away from here." Sheska paused. "She has to know something happened to us, but I don't know how to call her."

"It'll be you and Winry, then." Lady Trisha looked grave. "I hate to ask you two children to take on this burden, but-"

"-we don't have a choice," Sheska finished. "At this point we know too much to live through Dante taking control."

Lady Trisha nodded. "If I had known that-" she paused. "No, I wouldn't have changed things."

"Change what?"

"Dating Hohenheim. He spent some years on Earth, you know, when he was young. Attended university in Amestris at the same time I was there."

Sheska nodded. The story was heavily romanticized, but well known, especially if you knew anything about Mars. The son of the Martian Technocrat had gone to Earth, to a small town university, and met an Earthling -- a young woman attending school in the town she grew up in -- who he loved enough to offer his hand in marriage, tradition and protocol be damned.

"Maybe that makes me selfish, putting my sons in danger because I loved my husband too much," Lady Trisha said. "I could make a choice in becoming Lady Trisha. Ed and Al were born to their positions."

"Not at all. It's not your fault that politics is... political," Sheska replied. "Dante and the Isolationists were the ones who did this. Not you."

"Dante," Trisha repeated. "You know, before he left for school, she was considered to be the woman that Hohenheim would marry. They used to work together, and he told me that she was fond of him."

Sheska blinked, trying to imagine Dante being fond of anyone. She didn't know the woman well at all, but the amount of casual suffering she brought to others made it seem more likely that Phobos would fly out of orbit.

"He never told me what they worked on, but I wonder when her first android, that Envy, dates from?" Trisha asked.

"You mean, maybe Envy was created by both of them?"

"Just me wondering why Dante didn't include the loyalty circuits that she said Sloth had. Hohenheim wouldn't force anyone to be loyal to him. For a head of state, he's remarkably ambivalent about others following him. Sometimes I'd think he'd be happier if he was just left to his lab, and someone else ran the planet."

"Or the circuits and codes could just be new developments." Sheska frowned, filing the information away in case she needed it later.

"True. Perhaps I just want to find some good in people, even ones who are doing horrible things."

"And Dante?"

"She loved once, maybe. I don't know if she loves anything now, except her own power. Not even her cause or the other Isolationists." Lady Trisha shook her head. "I want her stopped, and I want to speak up for saving her life, but I can't, in good conscience. She's proven to be willing to hurt innocents to get what she wants, and is just too resourceful."

Sheska nodded, looking grim.

"As for Sloth..." Lady Trisha said, looking off into the middle distance. "I can't imagine she's sane any more, if she has any bit of my regard for my boys or my husband. I... you and Winry do what you have to. I know Winry, and she has good judgement and a good heart."

"Yes, milady."

"Call me Trisha, or Missus Elric. It's been nearly two Earthly decades, and I'm still not a milady. If we all survive this, you'll have a friend in the Royal Family. Or more than one." Lady Trisha smiled at her. It wasn't a full smile, but had a glimmer of hope in it. She cocked her head to the side. "All this talk, and I realized I'm not sure of your name. You're Ambassador Hughes' assistant, though."

"Yes, mi- Missus Elric. Sheska Squires." She realized she had thought she had introduced herself, but it had been Sloth she had been talking to.

"It is a pleasure to meet you, Miss Squires."

It was then that Winry walked up to them. "Ed and I think we have everything. Do you want to be there when Ed tu- wakes him up?"

* * *

Sheska decided to wait by herself while the Elrics and Winry had their reunion with Alphonse. After witnessing the scene with Dante and its aftermath, she worried about getting in the way of a family moment.

Time still bothered her. She knew Winry wouldn't leave until she was sure the Royal Family was all right, and that even if Dante knew how to work the Kepler Gate, it would take time for her to turn it on. She hoped.

There was just too much information she didn't have, and too much riding on this. And too much suffering -- Ambassador Hughes, Maria and now Prince Alphonse. She didn't even know what would happen to all the Earthlings and other offworlders that were on-planet if Dante won.

Winry motioned her over. Alphonse was sitting up, and he turned towards her. The body still had a disquieting stare, and Sheska wasn't sure where to look. "Thank you, Miss Squires," he said. His voice was mechanical, with a lack of defining characteristics, but it sounded layered in emotional tone, like it should. "I know you did what you could..."

"Quit apologizing, dummy," Edward said, putting a hand on his brother's shoulder. There were tears in his eyes.

"I'm not apologizing, Brother," Alphonse answered. "I just wanted to let Miss Squires know I appreciate it."

"Um... I hate to ask -- but can you two fill us in on everything you know about the Kepler Gate?" Sheska said. "If we have any chance against Dante, we'll need all the help we can get."

"I can go with you two, if you need that much help," Edward replied. "Dante and her androids are dangerous. Mom can take care of Al for me."

"Are you really in that kind of shape to go?" Winry asked. "You look awful."

"So do you," he replied. "We all look like a mess."

"Winry, how long will it take to get back to the cave?" Sheska asked. "Should we come up with a plan before we leave?"

"Depending on how much I push the engine and whether Phobos and Deimos are up," she replied. "I'm still a wanted woman."

Edward made a noise. "I can take care of that. It's not like we're hiding from Dante any more at this point."

"So, maybe an hour?" she said.

"Your High- Edward, can we come up with a plan to stop Dante in an hour?" Sheska asked.

"Probably. Let's get Winry's ship and go. I don't know how long we have." He turned to face his mother and brother. "Um... I'll try to be back soon?"

Trisha smiled at him. "Try not to be reckless." She hugged him. "And take care of yourself. Al and I will be fine here, for now. If we run into trouble, I'll call the nearest town to pick us up."

"I wish I could help," Alphonse said.

"Nah, you just focus on getting everything working again. And take care of Mom." Edward hugged his brother as well.

"Bye, Auntie Trisha. Bye, Al." Winry hugged them both as well.

As they headed out the door, and walked in borrowed shoes across the cold, windswept and frost-covered polar dunes to the _Wrench_, Winry looked back, towards the little station where they left Trisha and Alphonse. "Can we come up with a plan at all?"

"Sure we can," Sheska said.

"But you remember how I froze up when we went to get the Ambassador," Winry said. "Even if we can get in, I don't know how we can stop Dante _and_ Sloth and Envy. Ed's all right in a fight, but I'll just freeze up again." They reached the _Wrench_'s airlock and she opened up the ship. "I'm going to need to change and wash before we take off. Ed, you are doing the same thing after I finish. I don't want the grime on the seats."

"Hey, Winry," Ed said, "don't walk off like that."

"Why not?" she asked.

"We didn't finish talking about that."

"Look, I can at least fly you and Sheska there. I'm good at those kind of things." Winry ducked back into the aft part of the _Wrench_. "And don't you come back here while I'm changing, Edward Elric. I'll leave out something clean for you to use."

Sheska looked at Edward. "I'll talk to her when you change," she said. "If that doesn't work, it's your turn."

He shrugged. "Sounds good. She's really something, you know. I don't think I could have saved Al without her."

Sheska nodded. "She is. Really something, I mean."

When Winry came out, hair still damp, but in a clean jumpsuit, Sheska had moved into the co-pilot's chair. "It shouldn't take Edward long to finish in the wash room," she said.

Winry snorted. "He'd be ready to go now if I would let him."

"So, I was thinking..." Sheska said.

"Yeah?" Winry leaned forward.

"Dante and her androids are really strong," Sheska said. "Edward could probably match one of them with his Alchemy, but neither of us can fight all that well." Winry nodded. "So," Sheska continued, "we shouldn't try to fight them at all."

"What? But I thought you said-"

"I mean, you're really good at machines, and Edward is an Alchemist, and I've got a good memory and we're all really smart people. Dante's probably smart, too, but Sloth is programmed to not act independently, and Envy doesn't seem to like Dante much. So maybe instead of fighting, we should try to out-think them."

Winry stared at her. "You have any ideas how?"

"Not yet, but I'll bet when Edward tells us what he knows, we'll figure out something."

It was then that Edward came in, a towel draped across his shoulders and his feet still bare. Winry and Sheska turned to him expectantly. "What?" he said.

"Strap in," Winry replied. "We're taking off, and on the way, you're telling us everything you know about the Kepler Gate."


	9. Chapter 8: The Gate Opens

This time, they landed well outside of the skylight entrance to the cave, and walked. Winry and Edward didn't seem to mind, but Sheska was getting very sick of all the cross-country hiking she was doing, even with the low gravity putting a spring in her step. Unlike the polar cap, there were the blue-black of Martian plants covering most of the red ground, and she tried to not catch her feet in the undergrowth. When they reached the entrance, Sheska could see that there was a worn path that switchbacked down the side, barely noticeable unless you caught the cairn of black stones at the head of the trail. Sheska peered over the edge, to see if she could catch sight of a guard at the bottom.

"Someone's down there," Winry said. "I caught a heat signature when we flew over, and it was too big to be an animal."

"Think they saw us?" Sheska asked.

"Maybe. The area's not as seismically dead as most, so it's not like they could have felt the ship land with vibrations. But they might have heard us fly over. I couldn't come in quietly on a rocket ship."

"The trail would be the best place for an ambush," Edward said. "We can only go up or down there."

"We could try climbing again?" Winry said.

"I don't think I recovered from last time," Sheska replied. When this was all over, she wasn't going to walk more than a block without looking for a taxi or airbus.

"Well, there's no other way down, unless you want to try jumping." Edward turned, starting to walk down the trail.

"Hey, hold it right there!" Sheska saw Envy step into the light below. "Well, or not. Shooting moving targets would be more of a challenge." He leaned against the rock wall. Sheska couldn't tell if he was holding any type of weapon from the top of the hole, but she guessed he could draw quick enough that it wouldn't matter. Unless they turned around and went home.

"You don't want to shoot us," she yelled.

Envy straightened up. "And how do you know that, considering I just said I very much _do_ want to shoot you?"

"Lady Trisha said Dante created you, but she's not very nice to you. So maybe you'd rather work for us."

"Sheska, are you serious?" Edward said. "You saw what he did to the Ambassador and helped to do to Al!"

"You have a crazy one there, Shorty!" Envy yelled back. "Does she try to break into the zoo and free the snarks to keep as pets, too?"

"You're not that much taller than me!" Edward yelled back.

"I'm serious!" Sheska said. "Look, Dante's more dangerous to Earth than you are, as long as she has the Kepler Gate. And she's just as likely to try to kill us without you. And, as for you... do you really want Dante running this planet?"

Envy considered this. "You have a real career in politics ahead of you, Earthling."

"Thank you."

"Wasn't a compliment. What makes you think that I won't just kill you and take on that bitch on my own?"

"Because if you could, you would have done it already," Edward yelled. "We're not stupid."

"Just insane. Even _with_ my help, you've got no chance against the old bat."

"Want to bet?" Edward said.

"We made it this far," Sheska added.

"Fine. I'm game. You can come down, and I won't shoot you. Yet. If this all goes to pieces, I might change my mind, though."

Sheska looked back at Winry. "It worked!"

Winry nodded. "Amazing. I didn't think it would."

"Thank Trisha -- she told me as much as she could."

The three of them took the steep trail down. Sheska had to keep her eyes on where she was putting her feet, but she saw that Edward's eyes were always on Envy, who didn't seem like he was going to move from his relaxed posture against the rock. When they reached the bottom, Envy leaned forward, and Sheska felt herself tense up. Despite her words, she really didn't trust the android. "You three do have some kind of plan, right?"

"You lead us in, you and Edward distract Dante and Sloth, and on our signal, you'll know what to do." Winry said.

"'I'll know what to do?'" Envy mimicked her. "Well, that plan fills me with confidence. It's almost like you don't trust me."

Edward snorted. "Let's just get this whole damn thing over with."

"Whatever you say, Prince Shorty. I still am going to shoot you in the back if this is a dumb plan."

"Shut up with that 'Shorty' crap."

"Wow, you've got a foul mouth for nobility," Envy commented. "Well, let's take you three in to see the paragon of noble behavior herself." The last was accomplished with an roll of his eyes as he turned and led them into the cave.

This time, there was no light -- they had to rely on Envy's footsteps to not run into the walls. Despite that, it seemed like the right path to Sheska, though she was fully aware that without other cues, the count of her footsteps against stone could be wrong.

She heard Envy stop, and nearly fell over trying not to trip over Winry or Edward. "Here's the door," Envy said. "Since you three are prisoners, I better knock."

"Forget knocking -- we'll surprise her." Edward clapped his hands and the glow from his Alchemy nearly blinded Sheska as he laid hands on the door. "Now!"

The room that housed the machinery of the Kepler Gate was even more spectacular and vertigo-inducing than Sheska remembered. While before, the machinery had been somewhat quiescent, now it hummed with energy. Sparks drifted in the air, which wavered like it was caught in heat mirages.

"Sheska, look up," Winry said, whispering like she was in a cathedral.

Above, like the mural she saw being constructed at the palace days and forever ago, was Mars, carved from copper and gleaming on a brass track. Two hoops with tiny onyx beads represented Phobos and Deimos. Looking towards the edge of the room showed stately Jupiter and Saturn, and brilliantly blue Uranus and Neptune, and a silver and copper dust of Kuiper Belt objects. Towards the center shown blue Earth, dark Luna, silvery Venus, and little, grey, Mercury, all surrounding the golden Sun. And above it all, stood the most clear view of the stars that Sheska had ever seen, with no window or wavering atmosphere in the way. She almost had to hold her breath and pray that the vacuum didn't pull her up into the void.

Dante and Sloth stood at the center of it all, below the Sun, Dante moving her hands over what looked to be the controls like a conductor of an orchestra. Sloth seemed unmoved by the entire thing, and was standing idle, like she was shut off. That seemed like a crime to Sheska, who, even without her amazing memory, thought that this was the one thing she could never, ever forget.

She felt Edward put his hand on her shoulder as he brushed past. "Dante!" he yelled, striding towards the catwalk that led to the central platform.

Dante didn't even look up, but she must have said something. Sloth switched on, then, rushing across the catwalk at speeds that no human could match.

However, Envy wasn't human. "Going somewhere, sister? The brat asked for Mother Dearest, you know." He met her midway, and the catwalk shook as he attempted to stop her sprint. The two started moving up and around the handrails like acrobats, taking to the supports as the third dimension to their fight. It made Sheska dizzy just watching it.

"Envy, you idiot, you're blocking the way!" Edward yelled.

"Working on it, Shorty." And he shoved Sloth down, making Sheska stifle a yelp. The android caught herself, but she was well below where they were standing. Envy dived after her, and Sheska didn't see where he stopped his fall, or if he did.

"Don't watch them," Edward said. "Just take the catwalk -- I'll lead Dante away now that she hasn't anyone to send after us. Winry, can I borrow a wrench?"

"Sure," Winry took a large one out from her toolbox and handed it to him.

Edward tucked it into his pocket, and strove to the side of the platform. He started climbing towards some sensitive-looking equipment. "Hey, you!" he yelled. "If you don't want your component atoms splattered in a ring around the planet, you _might_ want to stop me." He used a bit of cord to loop himself to the supports and brought the wrench up.

"He's not serious, right?" Sheska said. "Tell me he's bluffing."

"Edward Elric, if you break that wrench by using it as a blunt weapon, I'll break your fool head!" Winry didn't seem to be listening to her.

Dante seemed to be taking him seriously, too. At first, Sheska didn't see a reaction from her, but then a small cable car rose to meet her at her station. Dante stepped onto it and sent it speeding towards where Edward was working.

"Go!" Edward shouted.

Winry took Sheska's hand, and led her towards the catwalk. Sheska struggled to find a place to place her eyes that didn't terrify her. The ceiling was still full of stars and the crystal and brass clockwork planets, and the floor below dropped nearly forever towards the core, with occasional flashes, both from the machinery of the Kepler Gate and Envy and Sloth's battle in midair. She settled for keeping her eyes on Winry's back, since Winry didn't seem to be afraid at all. Then again, a pilot had to be used to being suspended in an infinite array of stars, and not falling into them. Or maybe Winry was just lucky and not born with a fear of heights.

They reached the central platform and stopped. Winry advanced slowly on the machine Dante had been working on. "Okay, let's hope that Ed really understands these things," Winry said, reaching out to touch the controls. "Sheksa, keep an eye out on Dante and Sloth and tell me if they get close."

"What if they do?" Sheska said. Edward seemed to be quite good at keeping Dante occupied, and she couldn't even see Sloth and Envy any more.

"I don't know. Be creative."

It was hard watching the fight, and being unable to do anything to help anyone. Sheska felt the thump as someone landed on the catwalk. Envy. Sloth followed him, and he practically shoved her towards the platform near the door, herding her away from where Winry and Sheska stood. Sheska stifled back her scream, but started biting her lip as Sloth met up with Dante. The two obviously had no problems working together, while Edward and Envy seemed to be nearly tripping each other up, and just as interested in yelling at each other as fighting Sloth and Dante.

Sheska wanted to shout out to Winry to work faster, but she knew the other woman was working as fast as she could on ancient machinery that she had learned second-hand in an hour while flying a suborbital spaceship.

The light around them changed, starting to glow crimson and violet instead of purest blue-silver and faint gold. "Winry?"

"It's supposed to do this, I think. At least Ed said it would get weird here."

"Is this the right kind of weird, though?" She thought she felt the currents of air change, like there was an updraft, and looked towards the ceiling. The stars were gone, and in their place was a swirling mass of something that reminded Sheska of holo-movies of black holes. She gripped the railing tighter -- the swirling maelstrom looked like it was trying to crawl down the edges towards the door.

"I don't know," Winry said. "Ed said this will warp space into something that could pick up Dante and throw her elsewhere."

"But what about us?"

The fighters on the other platform had noticed. Edward seemed to have a grim determination, and Sloth was impassive, but Envy looked spooked and Dante was shouting something that Sheska couldn't hear. She was trying to push past Edward back towards the catwalk and away from the walls. He was blocking her, but Sheska got the sense that that couldn't last forever. Indeed, Dante did something that knocked Edward prone, and he got up, slowly. She was already sprinting for the catwalk, though.

Winry threw her hands away from the console, and started waving wildly. "Ed, do it now!" Sheska could see that the eldritch energy that looked like it belonged in a horror film, not real life, had nearly reached the platform where the fight was.

Edward touched the ground and, with a wrenching of steel, the catwalk ripped itself apart, blocking Dante from reaching them. Envy glanced at the energy, then seemed to nod. He took a prodigious leap, landing between Dante and the ruined catwalk. What he said then, only he and Dante heard, but he gave his creator a shove into Sloth, knocking them both into the energy, which was wavering wildly. It seemed to reach for them, wrapping them into an encompassing embrace.

Sheska thought there should have been a scream. Or a sound or something, instead of the two just vanishing. The platform shook beneath her feet, bringing her back to the present. "We better get out of here." She glanced at the catwalk Edward had ruined to stop Dante. "Winry, can you bring back that cable car?"

The console Winry had used was starting to spark. "I think so," she said, tapping buttons. Something whirred towards them, and, to Sheska's dismay, it was more like a trapeze than a cable car. But it seemed to be attached and moving, despite the fact that it felt like that interrupting Dante to do their own stunt was rapidly tearing the machinery of the Kepler Gate apart. Winry climbed onto it, and, gripping it with one hand, helped Sheska follow her. Sheska clung to the trapeze for dear life, closing her eyes and trying to ignore every shake and drop as they traveled across the abyss.

Finally, with a sickening lurch, they stopped moving and strong arms -- Edward's -- pulled them onto somewhat solid ground. "Let's get to the surface and get out of here," he said. "I don't know how much damage this place will do when it finally falls into itself."

"Where'd Envy go?" Winry asked, looking around.

"Coward ran for it as soon as he was sure Dante and Sloth were gone," Edward replied. "Come on."

They sprinted out the door and through the maze of crystal caves that rang with the death throes of the Kepler Gate. When they reached the bright sunlit hole at the entrance, Edward started pushing them harder to scramble up the trail, despite the fact that the sands and rocks from the top were making the going even more treacherous.

"My ship!" Winry cried when she reached the top. "That bastard took my ship!"

Indeed, the _Wrench_ wasn't where Winry had landed it, and only the disturbed soil and scorched plants remained.

"Didn't you lock it behind you?" Edward asked.

"Of course I did!"

"Um, I hate to be a bother, but shouldn't we be running to get clear of any implosion?" Sheska said, glancing at the pit in the ground they just left.

"Right," Edward said. "We'll have to head to the nearest town and I'll call the palace for transportation. Dammit."

As they started to jog away from the grave of the Kepler Gate, Sheska couldn't help but here Winry mutter about her general opinion of androids who steal her things and try to kill her family. She trusted that, despite his reluctant help against the Lady Dante, Envy would soon find that the Royal Family of Mars was not happy with him. Nor was Winry Rockbell, Martian Space Pilot.


	10. Epilogue

_One week later..._

"I know my identification is somewhere in here." Sheska dug through her belt pouch, pulling out enough credit chips, pens and various items she had been holding to drown a small country.

"Hurry it up," the palace guard muttered. "We're not supposed to let unauthorized people stand around looking for their identification. Do this before you approach the gate."

"Sheska!" Sheska looked up to see Winry and Prince Alphonse waving at her. Winry ran over. "Oh, good. You got my call."

The guard looked at Alphonse. "Your Highness knows this Earthling?"

"Yes. Miss Sheska Squires is a loyal friend." Alphonse answered. Despite the fact he still wore the robot body that she had last seen him in, his voice was now something like the one he had in his old body. She must have looked startled, because Alphonse nodded at her. "Brother fixed things for me so I sound like I used to. He would have tried to make be look more like I used to too, but I thought that might be misleading to people."

"Well, if the Prince vouches for you," the guard said, "I suppose I can let you through this once. Don't do this again."

"I won't, sir," Sheska said, feeling rather embarrassed that Winry and Alphonse had had to rescue her from something as silly as a missing identification card.

"I can't stay," Alphonse said as the three of them walked. "Since we got back, Brother, Mom and I are busy trying to find Dad and run things while he's gone."

"The Technocrat's still missing?" Sheska asked. "Dante didn't leave notes where he was?"

Alphonse nodded. "Not that we know of, yet. We're not sure where he got to, but we'll find him. Mom and I made a start going through Dante's files while you two and Brother were out. Here." He presented her a thick brown envelope.

"What's this?"

"Some of the stuff we found had to do with Earth. We wanted you and Ambassador Hughes to have it. As thanks for helping us."

Sheska eyed the file. "Nothing you'll get in trouble for sharing with me?"

Alphonse shook his head. "Nope. I didn't decipher all of it yet, but some of it looks pretty serious, though. Dante had some high connections on Earth."

"But she was an isolationist," Winry said. "I thought she wanted to drop Earth into a hole and ignore it."

"She would still need to keep Earth out of her business," Sheska replied, "at least until she found out the Kepler Gate wasn't a myth. Thank you, Your Highness."

"Call me Al," Alphonse replied. "Um... the Ambassador is all right, right?"

Sheska nodded. "He's recovering nicely. The low gravity is doing him good. Denny and I have been trying to cover for him until he's well enough to get back to work."

"Oh, that's a relief." Alphonse said. "Then I'll see you later, then?"

Sheska nodded, and he waved at her, and took off towards another wing of the palace.

"Sheska," Winry said once Al was gone. "Can I ask you something?"

"Sure," Sheska repled.

"Ed and Al let me use one of the Royal spaceships. Officially, it's for looking for clues to the Technocrat's location, but..." Winry shrugged. "I also want to track down Envy and get my ship back. The boys know about that, but they haven't said anything. And, I was thinking, I know we've only known each other for a short time, but would you like to help? I could use a good co-pilot."

Sheska frowned. Soaring off into the wide black yonder looking for adventure -- well, a missing monarch, a renegade robot and a stolen spaceship -- would be exciting. But, she couldn't leave the Ambassador behind, hurt as he was. "I'm sorry, Winry. I'd love to come, but I have a job to do here."

Winry nodded. "Oh. Well, the offer will stay open as long as I have a ship, all right? I guess this is goodbye."

"For now -- where are you going first?" Sheska asked.

"Some of the Mars Trojan mining bases, then in to Venus," Winry replied. "Earth's still on the wrong side of the Sun, but I'll check there next."

"You'll radio back here, right?" Sheska said.

"Of course."

Sheska opened her arms and hugged the Martian woman. "Take care of yourself out there," she told her. "Don't... don't get involved in anything dangerous."

Winry hugged her back. "You too. And look out for Ed and Al for me. Auntie Trisha, Granny, Master Izumi and her husband will be too, but-"

Sheska pictured the stern Alchemist she had met, and attempted to picture her as something other than the ascetic warrior-scholar that had taught the Princes of Mars. "She's married?"

"Yeah. Her husband runs a butcher shop in the town she grew up in. She lives there when Ed and Al don't have her out helping things." Winry didn't seem to have any problem with Izumi as the wife of a butcher. Martians were truly strange people. "So, I better finishing making preparations. My launch window starts tomorrow." Winry replied. "I... the next time we're on the same planet, we have to catch up. Promise me?"

"I promise," Sheska said, hoping she would see Winry again soon.

* * *

Dear Sheska,  
That was an interesting story, but maybe you should try changing the names to people we don't know.  
-- Love, Winry

P. S. Do you really think I'm from Mars?

* * *

Dear Winry,  
Sorry. I told you I'm really bad at names. I've kind of gotten attached to these, but I'll change them in my final typed copy.  
-- Love, Sheska

P. S. No, but wouldn't it be cool if you _were_?

* * *

**Author's Note**

When I got into SF fandom in high school, I read the classics since no one told me not to. The usual -- Wells, Asimov, Niven, Heinlein, and Clarke. At the same time, I was returning to astronomy, something I loved as a child and now do as a career. So, I had these two visions of space -- the pre-Mariner vision of three habitable worlds in our Solar System already fading by the time Heinlein set pen to paper, and the modern pictures of Mars the frozen desert with spectacular geology and Venus the lava-covered oven shrouded in sulfuric acid clouds. There was beauty in the truth -- seriously, go check out the photos coming from the Mars rovers or the orbiters -- but there was also beauty in fantasy worlds that, despite the familiar names, were as fictional as Narnia or Arda.

So, the story draws on both the fictional Mars created by Burroughs and Wells and a group of telescope observers who got suckered by optical illusions into seeing _canali_, and the real Mars. The place names are real. There really are caves near Tharsis and dune seas covering the pole, and I put the capital in the Cyndonian tablelands, about where some wistful thinkers saw mesas that looked like cities and human faces. There are no Martians, though, unless you count the cute little robots we send and the scientists who make a living physically on Earth but mentally on Mars. At least there are no Martians on our Mars, though who knows about the alternate Mars on the other side of the Gate. Sheska can hope.

The story itself might be a bit anachronistic -- there probably is a Mars and Venus in Amestris's world, but the place-names and geography might not be the same. Amestris is set in an alternate Earth, but the names and geographies don't correspond to Europe, after all. I'm also trying to keep the tech a bit like something that might have been imagined pre-computer era. If you read some of the earlier Heinlein novels, you can get this idea -- the combination of faster-than-light travel with a computer that could only handle binary input and output in _Starman Jones_ for example. (I could link to TVTropes, but I'd make no friends.)

One of the perks of being an astronomer is that you get to interact with a load of interesting people. In my case, that includes some Martians -- scientists who study Mars. I even gave Sheska the surname of one -- Squires was not only chosen because of alliteration (Clark Kent, Peter Parker, Reed Richards, Edward Elric -- all the cool heros have alliterative names) and for the meaning, but also after the head of the Mars Exploration Rovers project. As it happens, Winry's last name sounds like the other Martian geologist I know, who is also the president of the Planetary Society. I'd also like to put a shout-out to the grad students of them both, who are all cool people and doing awesome work on Mars. (Psst -- if any one of them are reading this... hi!)

Also, thank you to my friend, Zanne, who reminded me I had this fic when scrounging around for an idea for Sci-fi Big Bang, and prompted me to look for the first draft. Thank you to my artist, Crysty Twilight, and also to CaityCat, my beta.


End file.
